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BARBARA HECK. 



BARBARA RECK 


f\ "rate of Early 


BY 



CINCINNATI : CRANSTON & CURTS 
NEW YORK: HUNT & EATON 

'895 


v J-1S 




Copyright 

BY CRANSTON & CURTS. 

1893 . 


AUTHOR’S EXPLANATORY NOTE. 



'HE accompanying story first appeared in 


* the numbers of the Canadian Methodist 
Magazine , for the year 1880, and is here re- 
printed from those numbers. Some time 
after its first appearance, the Rev. J. Jackson 
Wray requested the writer to contribute a 
story to his magazine published in London, 
England. The story of Barbara Heck was 
offered him for a stipulated sum. It re- 
mained in his possession for some years, 
notwithstanding a request for its return or 
for payment therefor. At length, in 1892, it 
appeared in a considerably expanded form 
under the title “Brave Barbara; The Story of 
a German Bible, by the Rev. J. Jackson 
Wray,” without the present writer’s knowl- 
edge or consent and without any recognition 
of his share therein, in the Christian Herald 
of London. It was only by accident, while 


4 


author's explanatory note. 


traveling in Bulgaria, in May, 1892, that the 
present writer obtained from a Greek gentle- 
man a copy of the Herald , containing a chap- 
ter of that story. A strong remonstrance 
elicited no response from Mr. Wray, or his 
representative, or publisher. 

In the year 1893, the issue of the story of 
“Brave Barbara” was begun in the Christian 
Herald of New York, edited by Dr. Talmage, 
as “by the Rev. J. Jackson Wray.” On re- 
monstrance of the writer for this unwarrant- 
able use of his work, the publisher of the 
Christian Herald recognized his rights therein 
by the payment of a sum agreed upon, and 
by printing at the head of each subsequent 
installment the name of the present writer, 
together with that of the Rev. J. Jackson 
Wray. These explanations are given in vin- 
dication of the original authorship of this 
story, which is here reprinted entirely from 
the original medium in which it appeared, 
and in its original form. 


W. H. WITHROW. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER I. Page. 

The Seed of the Kingdom, 9 

CHAPTER II. 

The Seed Bears Fruit, • 26 

CHAPTER III. 

Odd Coeony Days, 36 

CHAPTER IV. 

Expansion of Methodism, 47 

CHAPTER V. 

War-ceouds— Exiee . . 56 

CHAPTER VI. 

Under Northern Stars, 64 

CHAPTER VII. 

War Scenes, 79 

CHAPTER VIII. 

O, the Long and Cruee Winter, 95 

5 


6 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER IX. page. 

As Men that Dreamed, .104 

CHAPTER X. 

White-winged Peace, 114 

CHAPTER XI. 

Quaker and Cavalier, 125 

CHAPTER XII. 

A Life Drama, 140 

CHAPTER XIII. 

The Pioneer Preacher, 152 

CHAPTER XIV. 

The Recruit, i 59 

CHAPTER XV. 

The Camp-meeting, . . . .* 167 

CHAPTER XVI. 

A Hope Springs up, 179 

CHAPTER XVII. 

A Blessing in Disguise, 190 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

A Hope Fulfilled, 197 


CONTENTS. 


7 


CHAPTER XIX. page. 

A Merry Christmas and a Sad One 205 

CHAPTER XX. 

Closing Scenes, 218 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Barbara Heck, . Frontispiece. 

Grave of Philip Embury, 54 

The Itinerant’s Visit, 152 

Old Blue Churchyard, 228 


BARBARA HECK. 


Chapter I. 

THE SEED OF THE KINGDOM. 

N a blithe spring morning in the year 



1760 a remarkable group of persons 
were assembled on the Custom-house Quay, 
in the ancient city of Limerick, Ireland. An 
air of hurry and excitement was apparent in 
some of its members, which contrasted with 
the singular calmness of the others. Bales, 
boxes, bedding, and household gear were piled 
up on the quay, or were being rapidly con- 
veyed, with much shouting, by stout-armed 
sailors, dressed in blue-striped guernsey shirts, 
on board a vessel of about three hundred 
tons’ burden that lay alongside the pier, with 
sails partially unbent, like a sea-fowl preening 
her wings for flight. This was evidently a 
group of emigrants about to leave their mother 
country for a land beyond the sea. Yet they 


9 


1 


IO 


BARBARA HECK. 


were emigrants of a superior sort, all decently- 
clad — the men in knee-breeches, comfortable 
hose, and frieze coats ; and the women in blue 
cloaks, with hoods, and .snowy caps. It was 
not poverty from which they fled; for their 
appearance was one of staid respectability, 
equally removed from wealth and abjectness. 
Very affectionate and demonstrative were the 
warm-hearted leave-takings of the friends and 
neighbors about to be separated, many of 
them never to meet on earth again. 

“Ah ! Mr. Philip, shall we niver hear ye 
praich again?” pathetically cried one kind- 
hearted Irish widow. “ Who ’ll taich us the 
good way when ye’re beyant the salt say?” 

“ You forget, Mother Mehan, that Mr. 
Wesley will send one of his helpers to Balli- 
garrene, and come himself sometimes.” 

“ O ! Mollie, darlint, shall we niver see yer 
purty face again ? Shure it ’s as beautiful as 
the face of the Vargin herself,” went on the 
inconsolable creature, addressing a very young 
woman, who looked the lovelier for her tears. 
“The very sight o’ ye was betther than the 
praist’s blessin’ ! But I ’ll not forget the good 


THE SEED OF THE KINGDOM. 


II 


words ye’ve tould me ; and Mr. Philip, and 
swate Barbara Heck and her good man, Paul. 
The Lord love ye and kape ye all ; and all 
the saints protect ye.” The good woman had 
been brought up a Roman Catholic, and had 
not shaken off her old manner of speech, al- 
though she had for some time been won, by 
the singing and simple, heartfelt prayers of 
her Protestant neighbors, to the warm-hearted 
Methodist worship. 

The voyagers at length, one by one, climbed 
the gangway to the vessel’s deck, amid much 
wringing of hands and parting words, not un- 
mingled with tears and sorrowful faces. The 
apparent leader of the party, a young man 
of singularly grave demeanor for his years, 
dressed in dark frieze coat, not unlike the sort 
now called “ ulsters,” approaching the taffrail 
of the vessel, and taking from his breast- 
pocket a well-worn Bible, read to those around 
and to those upon the quay that sublime pas- 
sage in the hundred and seventh Psalm, be- 
ginning with these words : 

“ They that go down to the sea in ships, 
that do business in great waters ; these see 


12 


BARBARA HECK. 


the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the 
deep.” 

As he continued to read, his voice gathered 
strength and volume till it rang out loud and 
clear, and with an exulting tone in the closing 
words : 

“ O, that men would praise the Lord for 
his goodness and for his wonderful works to 
the children of men!” 

“ Yes, my brethren,” continued the speaker, 
u God opened a way through the sea for our 
fathers from the presence of their enemies, 
and led them into this fair and goodly land. 
But now it has become too strait for us, and 
we go to seek new homes in the land of 
promise in the West. We go forth with God 
as our Protector and our Guide. He is as 
near by water as by land. Many of our breth- 
ren have gone before us to that land, and many 
of you, we trust, will follow after. But on 
whichever side of the sea we dwell, we dwell 
beneath his care ; and for the rest, — the way 
to heaven is as near from the wilds of America 
as from the shores of dear old Ireland.” 

“ Thrue for ye ;” “ It ’s even so, so it is,” 


THE SEED OF THE KINGDOM . 13 

ejaculated several of his auditors, while others 
answered mutely with their tears. 

“ What mean ye to weep and break our 
hearts ?” said the first speaker, thinking of 
another parting on the seashore.* “ Is that 
all the Godspeed ye have for us? Come, let 
us sing a verse to cheer up our souls a bit 
and, ‘with a mellow, resonant voice, he began 
to sing a hymn, which one after another took 
up, till it swelled into an exultant paean of 
triumph : 

“ And let our bodies part, 

To different climes repair, — 

Inseparably joined in heart 
The friends of Jesus are. 

O let our heart and mind 
Continue to ascend, 

That haven of repose to find 
Where all our labors end ; 

Where all our toils are o’er, 

Our suffering and our pain, — 

Who meet on that eternal shore, 

Shall never part again.” 

“ And now let us commend one another to 
God and the word of his grace, ” continued 
the youthful speaker ; and, kneeling down 
upon the deck, in a fervent prayer he invoked 


* Acts xxi, 5-14. 


14 


BARBARA HECK, 


God’s blessing and protection on those who 
should brave the perils of the deep and on 
those who remained on the shore. 

“ Now, Mr. Embury,” said the boatswain, 
touching his cap, when this unusual service 
was over, “ we must haul in the hawsers. 

4 Time and tide wait for no man.’ See, the 
current is already turning. We must fall down 
the river with this tide. Shake out your top- 
sails, there,” he shouted to the men in the 
shrouds ; and to those on the shore, “ Throw 
off the moorings; let go the stern line.” And 
gently the vessel began to glide upon her way. 

Farewell words and loving greetings are 
spoken from the ship and from the shore. 
Wistful eyes look through their gathering 
tears. Many a fervent “God bless you,” “God 
keep you,” is uttered. As the last adieus are 
waved, and as the vessel onward glides, are 
heard, borne fitfully upon the breeze, the 
strain, 

“ Who meet on that eternal shore 
Shall never part again.” 

The sailing of that little vessel was an ap- 
parently insignificant event, and, save the 


THE SEED OF THE KINGDOM. 


15 


friends of those on board, little would the 
great world have recked had it foundered in 
the deep. But that frail bark was a new May- 
flower, freighted with the germs of an im- 
mortal harvest, which was destined to fill the 
whole land, the fruit whereof should shake 
like Lebanon. Those earnest souls, in the 
flush of youth and hope and love, bore with 
them the immortal leaven which was to leaven 
with its spiritual life a whole continent. 

Of the leader of this little company we 
have already spoken. By the side of Philip 
Embury stood his youthful wife, Mary Em- 
bury, a blooming young matron of remarkable 
personal beauty, not yet eighteen, and already 
two years married. As the vessel glided down 
the winding Shannon, her eyes looked wist- 
fully through her tears upon the emerald 
banks and purple uplands she should never see 
again. 

“ Do you repent leaving the dear old home ?” 
asked her husband, as he threw his arm caress- 
ingly around her. 

“Wherever you are, Philip, there is home,” 

she said, nestling in his arms and smiling 

2 


1 6 BARBARA HECK. 

through her tears, like the sun shining through 
a shower of summer rain. “ Wherever thou 
goest I will go ; thy people shall be my peo- 
ple, and thy God my God.” 

Near by stood Paul Heck, a man of grave 
appearance and devout manner, and by his 
side his wife, Barbara Heck, a blushing bride 
of a few weeks, although nearly ten years 
older than her bosom friend, Mary Embury. 
Around them were grouped others, whose 
names were destined to become familiar to fu- 
ture generations as founders of Methodism in 
the New World. 

How came this group of Teutonic emigrants 
to be leaving the shores of Old Ireland lor the 
New World ? The answer to this question 
will carry us far back in the history of Eu- 
rope. In the providence of God, times and 
places most remote from one another are often 
indissolubly linked together by chains of se- 
quences — by relations of cause and effect. 
The vast organization of Methodism through- 
out this entire continent, in this nineteenth 
century, has a definite relation to the vaulting 
ambition and persecuting bigotry of Eouis 


THE SEED OF THE KINGDOM . 


17 


XIV in the seventeenth century. That dis- 
solute monarch, not sated with the atrocity 
and bloodshed caused by his infamous revoca- 
tion of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, whereby 
half a million of the best subjects of France 
became exiles forever, twice ruthlessly invaded 
the German Palatinate. In a few weeks Mar- 
shal Turenne overran the country, and gave 
to the flames and sack and pillage thirty thriv- 
ing towns. 

Unable to maintain his conquests against 
the resolute Protestant inhabitants and their 
allies, the Grand Monarque, the most polished 
gentleman in Europe, deliberately gave orders 
from his palace of Versailles for the utter de- 
vastation of the country. The inhuman or- 
ders were obeyed with atrocious fidelity. 
Eighty thousand men, trained in the art of 
slaughter, were let loose upon the hapless 
country, which they ravaged with fire and 
sword. Heidelberg, Manheim, Spires, Worms, 
Oppenheim, Bingen, and Baden, towns and 
cities of historic fame, with their venerable 
cathedrals, their stately palaces, and their 
homes of industry, together with many a 


1 8 BARBARA HECK. 

humble hamlet and solitary farmstead, were 
given to the flames. At the old imperial city 
of Spires the French soldiers stole the orna- 
ments off the coffins, and mockingly scattered 
to the winds the dust of the German em- 
perors. 

“Crops, farms, vines, orchards, fruit-trees,” 
says a veracious chronicler, “were all de- 
stroyed ; and this once rich and smiling land 
was converted into a desolate wilderness.” In 
the bleak and bitter winter weather a hundred 
thousand houseless peasants — gray-haired sires 
and childing mothers and helpless children — 
wandered about in abject misery “imprecat- 
ing,” says the chronicler, “ the vengeance of 
Heaven upon the heartless tyrant who had 
caused their ruin.” Everywhere were found 
the corpses of men frozen to death. 

Thousands of the wretched fugitives took 
refuge within the lines of the English general, 
Marlborough. More than six thousand came 
to London, reduced from affluence to poverty, 
and were fed by the dole of public charity. 
A number — and with these we are at present 
more particularly interested — emigrated, un- 


THE SEED OF THE KINGDOM. 


19 


der the auspices of the British Government, 
to Ireland, and settled in the county of Lim- 
erick, near Rathkeale. They received grants 
of eight acres of land for each person, young 
and old, for which the government paid the 
rent for twenty years. In a contemporary list 
of these “Irish Palatines” occur the names, 
afterwards so familiar in the United States and 
Canada, of Embury, Heck, Ruckle, Sweitzer, 
and others. They are described by a historian 
of their adopted country as frugal and honest, 
“ better clothed than the generality of Irish 
peasants. Their houses are remarkably clean, 
besides which they have a stable, cow-house, 
and neat kitchen garden. The women are 
very industrious. In short, the Palatines have 
benefited the country by increasing tillage, 
and are a laborious, independent people, who 
are mostly employed on their own farms.” 

In the good Protestant soil of those hearts 
providentially prepared for the reception of 
the gospel, the seed of Methodism was early 
sown, and brought forth its natural fruit of 
good living. Wesley and his “helpers” pene- 
trated to their humble hamlets, and these poor 


20 


BARBARA HECK. 


refugees received the Word with gladness. 
When John Wesley, in 1758, passed through 
Ireland, preaching day and night, he records 
that such a settlement could hardly elsewhere 
be found in either Ireland or England. 

In this remarkable community was born, 
in the year 1734, the child destined to be the 
mother of Methodism in the New World. 
Her family seem to have been of respectable 
degree, and gave the name Ruckle Hill to 
the place of their residence in Balligarrene. 
Barbara Ruckle was nurtured in the fear of 
the Eord and in the practice of piety. She 
grew to womanhood, fair in person, and 
adorned especially with the graces of the 
Christian character. In her eighteenth year 
she gave herself for life to the Church of her 
fathers, and formally took upon her the vows 
of the Eord. 

“ From the beginning of her Christian 
life,” records her biographer, “ her piety was of 
the purest and profoundest character. The 
Wesleyan doctrine of the Witness of the Spirit 
was the inward personal test of piety among 


THE SEED OF THE KINGDOM: 


21 


the Methodists of that day ; and it was the 
daily criterion of the spiritual life of Barbara 
Heck. When, in extreme age, she was about 
to close her life-pilgrimage in the remote 
wilds of Canada, after assisting in the founda- 
tion of her Church in that province as well as 
in the United States, she could say that she 
had never lost the evidence of her acceptance 
with God for twenty-four hours together, from 
the day of her conversion. She was of a 
thoughtful and serious habit of mind, calm, 
self-collected, and quietly resolute. She had, 
through her entire Christian life, intervals of 
sadness and of severe mental conflict ; and 
there are traditions among her descendants 
which show that these trials were not unlike 
those of the great Reformer when enduring 
the “hour and power of darkness” in the castle 
of Wartburg. Her German Bible, her familiar 
companion to the end of her days, was her 
consolation in trial, and prayer her habitual 
resource. 

As the sun went down beneath the western 
wave, the little company of emigrants on ship- 


22 


BARBARA HECK . 


board gathered on the deck to take their last 
look at the dear old land which had been to 
most of them the land of their birth. The 
lofty summit of Brandon Hill lay golden in 
the light of the setting sun, then turned to 
ashen gray, which deepened in the shades of 
twilight to a rich purple hue, and then sank 
beneath the waves. Not many words were 
spoken, but not a few tears trickled silently 
down the cheeks of the women, whose sepa- 
ration from their native land wrung their very 
heartstrings. The rising wind whistled through 
the shrouds. The long roll of the Atlantic 
rocked the frail bark like a cradle in the deep, 
and made retirement to the crowded little 
cabin agreeable to most of the party. 

By the light of the swaying lamp, Philip 
Embury, who, though almost the youngest 
man of the company, was its acknowledged 
leader and head, read words of comfort from 
the Book Divine. As the waves smote with 
an ominous sound upon the wooden walls 
which seemed such a frail defense between 
them and the unfathomable sea, they enbraved 
their hearts by singing the grand old hymn, 


THE SEED OF THE KINGDOM. 


23 


to which their present position gave a new 
depth of meaning — 

“ The God that rules ou high, 

That all the earth surveys, 

That rides upon the stormy sky 
And calms the roaring seas ; 

This awful God is ours, 

Our-Fatlier and our Love; 

He will send down his heavenly powers 
And carry us above.” 

Embury then called on the grave, God-fear- 
ing Paul Heck to lead the devotions of the 
little band, and with deep emotion he com- 
mended them all to the Fatherly keeping of 
that God who guides the winds in their course 
and holds the seas in the hollow of his hand. 

Many weary weeks of storm and calm, 
cloud and sunshine, passed by, the dreary 
monotony of sea and sky rimmed by the un- 
broken horizon, without sight of sail or shore. 
At last was heard the joyous cry of “ Land ! 
Land ahead !” Daily prayer and praise had 
made the little ship a floating Bethel, and now 
glad thanksgiving ascended from every heart. 
Eager eyes scanned the horizon, rising higher 
and becoming more clearly defined. 

“ How beautiful it is !” exclaimed Mary 


24 


BARBARA HECK. 


Embury, as, wan and weak with long seasick- 
ness, she leaned upon the vessel’s rail at her 
husband’s side, as the wooded heights of Staten 
Island came in view. And as the splendid 
bay of New York, with its crowded shipping, 
opened out, she exclaimed, with childlike sur- 
prise: u Why, I believe it ’s as large as Eimer- 
ick! Who would have thought it in this New 
World !” 

Still greater was the surprise of the whole 
party when, on the iotli of August, 1760 — a 
day memorable in the religious history of this 
continent — they landed in New York and be- 
held the crowded and busy streets of a city 
which, even then, was more populous than 
any in Ireland, not excepting the ancient cap- 
ital, Dublin, than which they were slow to be- 
lieve there was anything finer upon earth. 

A feeling of loneliness, however, came over 
their hearts as they left the floating house in 
which they had been domiciled for twelve long 
weeks, to seek new homes in the land of 
strangers. But soon they discovered some of 
their countrymen, and even a few former ac- 
quaintances who had previously emigrated, 


THE SEED OF THE KINGDOM . 


25 


and to whom they felt themselves knit by 
closer ties because all others were such utter 
strangers. Philip Embury soon obtained em- 
ployment at his trade as a house-carpenter and 
joiner, in which he possessed more than ordi- 
nary skill ; and the others of the honest and 
industrious Palatine community were shortly 
engaged in some one or other of the manifold 
occupations of the busy and thriving town. 

Embury for a time endeavored to be faith- 
ful to his duty as class-leader and local 
preacher, by attempting some religious care 
for his Methodist companions in exile from 
their native land. But we are told that they 
fell away from their steadfastness amid the 
temptations of their new condition, possibly 
saying like the exiled Jews of old, “ How shall 
we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land ?” 
Embury in turn became discouraged, lost his 
religious zeal, and, constitutionally diffident, 
for some years ceased to exercise among them 
the duties of his office. Barbara Heck con- 
tinued meanwhile to nourish her religious life 
by daily communion with God and with her 
old German Bible. 


Chapter II. 

THE SEED BEARS FRUIT. 

F IVE busy years have passed away since the 
arrival of our Irish Palatines in the New 
World. The home longings for the land of 
their birth have been in large part succeeded 
by feelings of patriotic pride in the prosperity 
and rapid progress of the land of their adop- 
tion. Their religious prosperity, however, had 
not kept pace with that of their outward es- 
tate ; and they had in large degree become 
conformed to the worldliness of the society in 
which they lived. 

Now, however, the seeds of grace, long dor- 
mant, were to germinate and bring forth the 
first fruits of the glorious harvest which was 
yet to fill the land. This happy result was 
brought about in this wise : Another company 
of Palatine emigrants, in the autumn of 1765, 
arrived at New York. Among them were Paul 
Ruckle, brother of Barbara Heck, Jacob Heck, 

her brother-in-law, and other old neighbors 
26 


THE SEED BEARS FRUIT. 


27 


and friends. A few only of these were Meth- 
odists; the others were characterized by the 
worldliness of life and conduct which marked 
the period. The renewal of old friendships 
led to much social visiting, not unmixed with 
hilarious and not always innocent amusement. 
One of the characteristics of the times was a 
passion for card-playing — a device of the devil 
for killing time in an age when books and in- 
tellectual occupations were few, but which has 
still less excuse amid the affluence of these oc- 
cupations at the present day. 

In this amusement, varied by talk of auld 
lang syne in the land beyond the sea, a social 
group was one evening indulging in the house 
of one of their number — although there is no 
evidence that any of them were Methodists or 
connected with Embury. Casually, or let us 
say rather, providentially, Mrs. Barbara Heck 
called at the house, which was that of an ac- 
quaintance, to exchange greetings with her old 
friends. She had faithfully maintained through 
all these years a close and constant walk with 
God. Her conscience was therefore sensitive 
to the least approach or appearance of evil. 


28 


BARBARA HECK. 


Seeing before lier what she regarded as a snare 
of the devil for the ruin of souls, and inspired 
with a holy boldness, she snatched the cards 
from the table and flung them into the open 
fireplace, exclaiming : 

“What, friends ! will ye tamper with Satan’s 
tools, and fear ye not to be sore hurt thereby? 
Touch them no more, I beseech you, and pray 
God to forgive you your sin and folly.’’ 

“ Amen !” said one of the number, con- 
science-stricken at this reproof. “ I repent 
that ever I touched them. I will pay back 
every penny I ever won ; for it is not mine, 
nor honestly earned. God helping me, I will 
never touch the gaudy and seductive paste- 
boards again.” 

“ Sure, where ’s the harm of a quiet game 
among old friends ?” said another, rather in- 
dignant at the unceremonious interruption of 
the game. “ I never play for high stakes ; 
and if I win sometimes, why, sometimes I lose; 
and that makes it all even.” 

“ Can ye ask God’s blessing on the game?” 
demanded the earnest-souled Barbara. “Can 
ye shuffle these paltry toys to his glory and for 


THE SEED BEARS FRUIT. 


2 9 


your soul’s weal?” and she pointed with the 
majestic air of an ancient prophetess to the 
crisped and burning cards lying writhing in 
the flames. “ If so, play on. But well I wot, 
your own hearts will say nay.” 

“ Barbara is right,” said her brother, Thomas 
Ruckle ; “ I never knew her to be wrong. 
God is speaking to us through her. Let us 
listen to his voice. Let us take heed to our 
ways.” 

The little company dispersed, seemingly 
saddened and sobered by the fearless reproof 
of an honest and God-fearing woman, faithful 
to her convictions of duty and her intuitions 
of right. No more cards were played in that 
house, and deep religious convictions settled 
upon not a few minds of the company. 

Nor did the results end here. Under a di- 
vine impulse, Barbara Heck went straightway 
to the house of her cousin, Philip Embury, 
and appealed to him no longer to neglect his 
duty, but to exhort and warn and reprove the 
members of that Palatine community, of which 
God by his providence had made him the 
leader and religious adviser. With a keen 


30 


BARBARA HECK. 


sense of the spiritual danger of the little flock, 
she entreated him with tears, and exclaimed : 

“ Philip Embury, you must preach to us, 
or we shall all go to hell together, and God 
will require our blood at your hand.” 

“ I can not preach ; I have neither house 
nor congregation,” he replied, not without a 
feeling that, like Jonah, he was flying from the 
call of God. 

“ That shall not long be your excuse,” in- 
terrupted this intrepid woman. “ I will find 
the congregation and you shall find the house. 
Why, this very room in which we stand will 
do to begin in; and when it becomes too strait, 
the Lord will provide another.” 

With glowing zeal this new Deborah arose 
and went forth to begin the great work of or- 
ganizing the first Methodist service in the New 
World. That day was kindled a fire which 
has wrapped a continent in its holy flame, and 
which, by God’s grace, shall never be put out 
while the world shall stand. At the appointed 
time of service a little congregation of four 
persons was assembled in the humble parlor 
of Philip Embury, to whom, with penitent 


THE SEED BEARS FRUIT. 


31 


confessions of his own shortcomings and neg- 
lect of duty, and amid tears of contrition and 
a fresh dedication to God, he broke the bread 
of life. 

“That little group,” writes Dr. Abel Ste- 
vens, “ prefigured the future mission of Meth- 
odism in its widespread assemblies throughout 
the New World, as preaching the gospel to the 
poor. Small as it was, it included black and 
white, bond and free; while it was also an ex- 
ample of that lay ministration of religion 
which has extended the denomination in all 
quarters of the world, and of that agency of 
woman which Wesley organized, and to which 
an inestimable proportion of the vitality and 
power of the Church is attributable. The 
name of Barbara Heck is first on the list ; with 
her was her husband, Paul Heck ; beside him 
sat John Lawrence, his ‘ hired man and by 
her side an African servant called ‘ Betty.’ 
Such, let it ever be remembered, was the germ 
and type of the congregations of Methodism 
which now stud the continent from the Atlan- 
tic to the Pacific, from the Mexican Gulf al- 
most to the perpetual snows of the north ; 

3 


32 


BARBARA HECK . 


they could hardly have had a more fitting 
prototype.” 

At the close of this first Methodist sermon 
ever preached in America, Philip Embury or- 
ganized his congregation into a class, which 
he continued to meet from week to week. 
The little company continued to increase, and 
soon grew too large for Philip Embury’s house. 
They hired a more commodious room, which 
was immediately crowded. Philip Embury, 
toiling all the week for the bread that perish- 
eth, continued from Sabbath to Sabbath to 
break unto the people the bread of life. As 
in the case of the Great Preacher, “ the com- 
mon people heard him gladly.” He was one 
of themselves, and spoke to them of common 
needs and of a common Savior, and their 
hearts responded warmly to his earnest words. 

One day the humble assembly was a good 
deal startled by the appearance among them 
of a military officer with scarlet coat, epaulets, 
and sword. The first impression was that he 
had come in the king’s name to prohibit their 
meetings. They were soon agreeably unde- 
ceived. 


THE SEED BEARS FRUIT. 


33 


When the sermon was ended, he made his 
way through the little congregation, who stood 
somewhat in awe of his official dignity, to the 
preacher’s desk. He warmly clasped Embury 
by the hand, and said : 

“ Sir, I salute you in the name of the Eord. 
My name is Captain Thomas Webb, of His 
Majesty’s service ; not only a soldier of the 
king, God bless him, but also a soldier of the 
Cross and a spiritual son of John Wesley.” 

Warmly was the newcomer welcomed as 
“ a brother beloved,” and he was courteously 
invited to address the congregation. Without 
any hesitation, he complied, and in the easy 
manner of a polished English gentleman he 
briefly, in Methodist phrase, related his relig- 
ious experience. 

He had been a faithful soldier of King 
George, and bore in his person the marks of 
his devotion to his service. He wore over one 
of his eyes a dark shade, looking like a badge 
of mourning for the loss of the sight of that 
injured orb. He had rushed through the surf 
against a murderous fire at the siege of Louis- 
burg, in Cape Breton, where he lost his right 


34 


BARBARA HECK. 


eye. He had been among the first to climb 
the Heights of Abraham at Quebec, and had 
been severely wounded in fighting under 
Wolfe, in that memorable battle which closed 
the long conflict between English Protestant- 
ism and French Catholicism for the possession 
of the broad continent. Eight years later he 
heard John Wesley preach in Bristol, and 
forthwith recognized him as the spiritual leader 
under whose captaincy he was henceforth to 
wage a nobler warfare than that of arms. He 
considered that his life had been providentially 
spared in the day of battle to be fully conse- 
crated to the service of his Divine Master. He 
used often, in conversation with his friends, to 
narrate with devout gratitude his deliverance 
in the hour of peril. 

“As I was leading with my company,” he 
used to say, “ I suddenly felt a sharp pang, 
followed by a flash of light, and then all was 
dark. I was borne to the rear, and carried 
with the rest of the wounded to the boats and 
rowed to the British camp. I was almost 
gone, and had just consciousness enough to 
hear the soldiers say : ‘ He needs no help. 


THE SEED BE AES FRUIT. 


35 


He ’s dead enough.’ I mustered strength to 
say, ‘ No, I ’m not dead yet,’ when I fainted 
away, and all became black again. The sur- 
geons say that if the ball had struck a hair’s 
breadth higher or lower I would have been a 
dead man. But God in mercy spared me. I 
was not then fit to die. And now I sorrow not 
at the loss of bodily sight, since he has opened 
the eyes of my mind to see wondrous things 
out of his law.” 


Chapter III. 

OLD COLONY DAYS. 

C APTAIN WEBB was serving as barrack- 
master at the quaint old town of Albany, 
where there was a considerable body of British 
troops, when he first heard of the little band 
of Methodists at New York. He sought an 
early opportunity of aiding, by his presence 
and influence, the struggling religious com- 
munity upon which the more aristocratic por- 
tion of society looked down with a haughty dis- 
dain. In his scarlet coat and sash and gold 
epaulettes, he often stood behind the little 
wooden desk that served as a pulpit, and lay- 
ing his sword across the open pages of the 
Bible, preached with an energy and an elo- 
quence that soon crowded the house. 

So greatly did the congregations increase, 
that it shortly became necessary to seek a 
larger room. An old rigging loft in William 

Street was therefore engaged, and roughly 

36 


OLD COLONY DAYS . 


37 


fitted up for worship. The naked rafters of 
the roof still remained uncovered. A some- 
what tarry smell clung to the walls. An old 
ship’s figurehead — a “ gypsy king” with gilded 
crown, supposed to represent one of the East- 
ern Magi — supported the pulpit and formed 
an excellent reading desk. When Captain 
Webb stood behind it in full regimentals, he 
looked not unlike an admiral standing in the 
bow of his ship, or a warrior riding in a 
triumphal car. This unwonted state of affairs 
was the occasion of no small comment in the 
gossiping old town. 

“They do say,” said Squire Blake, the 
rather pompous custom-house officer of the 
port of New York, to Captain Ireton, a Boston 
skipper, for whom he was writing out the 
clearance papers of the good ship Betsy 
Jane , bound for Barbadoes — “ they do say 
that an officer of the king’s army preaches for 
those Methody people up there at the Rigging 
Loft. Well ! well ! Wonders will never cease. 

I must go and hear for myself ; though I would 
hardly like to be seen encouraging such schism 
if it were not that the presence of an officer of 


38 


BARBARA HECK. 


Captain Webb’s well-known loyalty really 
makes it quite respectable.” 

“ Well, neighbor,” replied the gallant 
skipper, who had imbibed the democratic no- 
tions which were even then floating in the 
atmosphere of Bunker Hill, u if the thing is 
not respectable in itself, all the king’s horses 
and all the king’s men won’t make it so*” 

“ Perhaps not, in the abstract ; but for all 
that it makes a good deal of difference to loyal 
subjects whether this new-fangled religion is 
prosecuted by the bailiffs or patronized by 
gentlemen in the king’s livery;” and here the 
worthy custom-house officer smiled somewhat 
grimly, as if the skipper’s speech were half 
treason. 

“ The king may want some more active 
service than that from his officers before long, 
if all I hear in the port of Boston is true,” re- 
plied the skipper, picking up his papers. 

“ They always were a stiff-necked set of 
rebels in Massachusetts Colony, I will say to 
your face, even if you do hail from there. I 
hope this is no new treason they are hatching.” 

“ O, I ’m not in any of their secrets,” said 


OLD COLONY DAYS. 


39 


the honest captain ; “ but you know that these 
absurd Navigation Laws hamper trade sadly, 
and there are loud murmurs at all the seaports 
about them. I ’ll venture to say that unless 
our ships get a better chance to compete for 
the West Injy trade, there ’ll be flat rebellion 
or wholesale smuggling before long.” 

“ Have a care, Skipper Ireton,” answered 
the Tory officer, shaking his head with an air 
of menace. “ The king’s troops well know 
how to deal with the first, and his customs’ 
officers will do their best to prevent the 
second.” 

Notwithstanding these efforts, however, 
these same officers did not always succeed in 
their virtuous endeavors. The unjust dis- 
crimination in favor of British-built shipping 
was felt by the Colonists to be an intolerable 
grievance. 

The general policy of Great Britain toward 
her American Colonies was one of commercial 
repression. The Navigation Laws (passed 
1651 by the Commonwealth, confirmed by 
Charles II, 1660) prohibited the exportation 
Irom the Crown Colonies of certain products, 


40 


BARBARA HECK . 


except to Great Britain and in British ships ; 
or the conveyance of any products of Asia, 
Africa, or America to any port in Great Brit- 
ain, except in British ships, or in ships of the 
country of which the goods were the product. 
American merchants were, therefore, precluded 
by law from the direct importation of siigar, 
tea, spices, cotton, and similar foreign products. 
These were required first to be shipped to 
Great Britain, and then to be reshipped to 
America at greatly-increased cost and delay. 
The Colonial traders largely disregarded this 
prohibition, and grew rich by smuggling, 
which acquired in time a sort of toleration. 
With the growth of American commerce, im- 
perial jealousy was aroused. The Colonial ves- 
sels were seized, and the contraband goods 
confiscated by British ships or by the officers 
of His Majesty’s customs. These confisca- 
tions sometimes took place with very little 
ceremony, if not with violence ; and it not un- 
frequently happened that serious riots occurred. 
The manufacture of certain materials, as wool 
and iron, was also, in defiance, it was felt, of 
natural rights, prohibited in the Colonies. The 


OLD COLONY DAYS. 


41 


oligarchical power of the Crown officials, and 
the offensive assumptions of the Church estab- 
lished by law, moreover, gave deep offense to 
the democratic communities of the American 
Colonies. 

The incidents above mentioned are intro- 
duced simply to indicate the general temper 
of the times. It is not the purpose of this 
story to recount the political events of the 
American Revolution, but to trace the develop- 
ment of Methodism in the New World. 

The old rigging loft soon became too small 
to hold the congregation which thronged its 
meager space. Many, doubtless, were attracted, 
like our good friend Squire Blake, at first by 
curiosity to hear an officer in scarlet coat, with 
sword and epaulettes, preach from his place 
behind the carved figure-head. Sometimes, 
however, they were disappointed by the ap- 
pearance in the pulpit of the plain and simple 
Philip Embury, whom any day in the week 
they might see plying his vocation of car- 
penter. 

“ It is bad enough, 0 complained Squire 
Blake, after one of these occasions, “ to see an 


42 


BARBARA HECK. 


officer, who is both a scholar and a gentlemen, 
usurping the place of an ordained clergymen 
in this manner; but to see a mere mechanic 
stand up to preach to his betters, it is intoler- 
able. It is subversive of all social order. It 
confuses all distinctions of rank. What ’s the 
world coming to, I wonder? It will end in 
flat rebellion, I see plain enough. ” 

“Well, your worship,” remarked John Stub- 
bins, a rather grimy-looking cordwainer, who 
was one of the group to whom these remarks 
were made, “it suits simple folk like us better 
than the learned talk of Dr. Whiteband down 
at Old Trinity. I went there t’other Sunday, 
and it was all about the Manichees and the 
Apollinarian heresy, that happened more than 
a thousand years ago ; and a lot of things I 
never heard of before, an’ did n’t know any- 
thing about after I had heard ’em. Now, 
Master Embury tells us about our plain, every- 
day duties — that men in my trade must n’t 
scamp their work nor put in bad leather; and 
the grocer must give good weight and meas- 
ure, and not sand his sugar, nor mix peas with 
his coffee. And we know that he does honest 


OLD COLONY DAYS . 


43 


work for fair wage hisself. When he makes 
a table or a chist of drawers, it ’s sure to be 
seasoned stuff and well put together. His 
preacliin’ and practice agree, you see, and one 
helps to clinch the other.” 

“That sort of talk may do for the lower 
classes, I suppose,” said the squire, taking 
snuff pompously. “ It does n’t need a Doctor 
of Divinity to preach like that. I could do it 
myself if I had a mind to.” 

“ O, I dare say,” replied the honest cobbler, 
with a twinkle in his eye and a wink to his 
neighbors who were standing around — he was 
of rather a democratic turn of mind and a de- 
spiser of dignities, like many of his craft — “I 
suppose you could if only you had the mind 
to ; that ’s all that ’s wanting.” 

The rather thick-witted squire did n’t see 
the point of the somewhat derisive laugh that 
ran around the circle, as he strutted away, 
swaggering his gold-headed cane and dusting 
the snuff off the frills and ruffles of his shirt 
front. He knew that he was not popular, but 
he did n’t see that he had done or said any- 
thing to be laughed at. 


44 


BARBARA HECK. 


The great majority of the worshipers at the 
humble rigging loft, however, were drawn 
there by sincere religious feeling. There was 
an honest heartiness about the simple services 
that came home to their every-day needs — to 
every man’s business and bosom. The warm- 
hearted love-feasts and class-meetings, and the 
hearty singing, were greatly prized by the toil- 
worn men from workshop or anvil, from dock 
or loom ; and by housewives and mothers, 
weary with their household cares. 

“Ah ! but it do seem just like the Methody 
preachin’ and singin’ I heard at dear old 
Gwenap and Penzance, years agone,” said 
Mrs. Penwinnen, an honest Cornish woman, 
to her next-door neighbor. “ Many ’s the time 
I ’ve heard Mr. Wesley preachin’ of an early 
mornin’ at the mine’s mouth, afore the men 
went down, or at eventide, when they came 
up to grass again.” 

“ Eh, did ye now ?” replied good Dame 
Durbin, as she stood with her door-key in her 
hand. “ I never heard un ; but I ’ve often 
heard honest John Nelson on Barnsley Woald, 
in old Yorkshire. Ay, an’ I ’ve seen un pelted 


OLD COLONY DAYS . 


45 


through the town wi’ rotten eggs, an’ help'd 
to do it mysen, God forgive me, afore I know’d 
what a mon o’ God he wor. He wor just a 
common sojer, ye wot, and the parson hissen 
headed the mob agen him.” 

Here came up stout Frau Stuyvesant, still 
wearing the quaint gold headband oi her na- 
tive Holland, who had also been attracted by 
the hearty Methodist singing of the service. 

“ Mynheer ist goot prediger,” she said, in 
her broken English. “ Men say his preach- 
ment ist same as myn countreeman, Arminius 
of Oudewater, in Utrecht. He speak goot 
worts.” 

Like flotsam and jetsam of the sea, these 
three creatures of diverse nationalities had 
been blown across the broad Atlantic, and 
drifted like seaweed into the quiet eddy of 
the old rigging loft of William Street, and 
there had found that rest and food for their 
souls for which their whole moral nature 
yearned. And this was but a type of the mis- 
sion of Methodism in America and throughout 
the world — to supply the deep soul-needs of 
humanity of many tribes and in many climes. 


46 


BARBARA HECK. 


The miracle of Pentecost was repeated, and 
by her missionary agencies these strangers 
and foreigners — Swedes, Germans, Norwe- 
gians, Sclav and Turk, Hindu and Chinese — 
each has heard in his own mother tongue the 
wonderful works of God. 


Chapter IV. 

EXPANSION OF METHODISM. 


HE old rigging loft which held the germ 



* of the mighty growth of Methodism in 
America, like a flower-pot in which an oak 
was planted, soon became too small for such 
rapid expansion. “ It could not,” says a con- 
temporary writer, “ contain half the people 
who desired to hear the word of the Lord.” 
The necessity for a larger place of worship be- 
came imperative; but where could this humble 
congregation obtain the means for its erection? 
Barbara Heck, full of faith, made it a subject 
of prayer, and received in her soul, with inex- 
pressible assurance, the answer, “ I, the Lord, 
will do it.” She proposed an economical plan 
for the erection of the church, which she be- 
lieved to be a suggestion from God. It was 
adopted by the society, and “ the first struc- 
ture of the denomination in the Western Hemi- 
sphere,” says Dr. Stevens, “was a monumental 
image of the humble thought of this devoted 


4 


47 


4 8 


BARBARA HECK. 


woman. Captain Webb entered heartily into 
the undertaking. It would probably not have 
been attempted without his aid. He sub- 
scribed thirty pounds towards it, the largest 
sum, by one- third, given by one person.” They 
appealed to the public for assistance, and the 
subscription-list is still preserved, represent- 
ing all classes, from the mayor of the city down 
to African female servants, designated only by 
their Christian names. 

A site on John Street, now in the very 
heart of the business portion of the city, sur- 
rounded by the banks of Wall Street and the 
palaces of trade of Broadway, was procured, 
and a chapel of stone, faced with blue plaster, 
was in course of time erected. As Dissenters 
were not allowed to erect “ regular churches ” 
in the city, in order to avoid the penalties of 
the law it was provided with a fireplace and 
chimney. Its interior, though long unfinished, 
was described as “ very neat and clean, and 
the floor sprinkled over with sand as white as 
snow.” “ Embury, being a skillful carpenter, 
wrought diligently upon its structure ; and 
Barbara Heck, rejoicing in the work of her 


EXPANSION OF METHODISM, 


49 


hands, helped to whitewash its walls.” “There 
were at first no stairs or breastwork to the 
gallery; it was reached by a rude ladder. The 
seats on the ground floor were plain benches 
without backs. Embury constructed with his 
own hands its pulpit ; and on the memorable 
30th of October, 1768, mounted the desk he 
had made, and dedicated the humble temple 
to the worship of God. It received the name 
of 1 Wesley Chapel,’ and was the first in the 
world to receive that honored name.” 

Within two years we hear of at least a 
thousand hearers crowding the chapel and the 
space in front. It has been more than once 
reconstructed since then, but a portion of the 
first building is still visible. A wooden clock, 
brought from Ireland by Philip Embury, still 
marks the hours of worship. Marble tablets 
on the walls commemorate the names and vir- 
tues of Barbara Heck and Embury, and of As- 
bury and Summerfield, faithful pastors, whose 
memory is still fragrant throughout the conti- 
nent. This mother-church of American Meth- 
odism will long continue to attract the 
footsteps of many a devout pilgrim to the 


50 


BARBARA HECK . 


birthplace of the Church of his fathers and of 
his own religious fellowship. He will discern 
what potency God can give to even a feeble 
instrumentality; that with him there is neither 
great nor small ; that he can make one to 
chase a thousand and two to put ten thousand 
to flight.* 

Methodism having now been established by 
lay agency in the largest city in the New 
World, it was soon destined to be planted, by 
the same means, in the waste places of the 
country. John Wesley, at the solicitation of 
Captain Webb and other Methodists in Amer- 
ica, had sent from England as njissionaries, to 
carry on the good work begun in New York, 
Richard Boardman and Joseph Pilinoor, the 
pioneers of an army of thirty thousand Meth- 
odist preachers on this continent. To these 

* It is a somewhat remarkable coincidence that shortly 
after Embury had introduced Methodism into New York, an- 
other Irish local preacher, Robert Strawbridge by name, was 
the means of its introduction into the Province of Maryland. 
Like Embury, he preached first in his own house, and afterwards 
in a humble “ log meeting-liou’se,” the prototype of thousands 
such, which were destined to rise as golden candlesticks amid 
the moral darkness all over this vast continent. Captain 
Webb had the distinguished honor of being the founder of 
Methodism in Philadelphia, and its zealous propagandist in 
many other places on the Atlantic seaboard. 


EXPANSION OF METHODISM, 51 

Philip Embury readily gave up his pulpit. 
His services had been entirely gratuitous, al- 
though he had received from his grateful 
hearers a few generous donations. He had 
discharged the duties of his office under a 
sense of grave responsibility, from which he 
was glad to be relieved by the arrival of au- 
thorized and ordained pastors. 

u Sirs,” he said, as he welcomed them to 
the quaint “ Wesley Church,” “ I have held 
this place like the lone outpost of a great 
army. I rejoice to see the watch-care of these 
people and the duties of this office pass into 
other and better hands. The Lord give you 
favor and prosperity, and make this house the 
birthplace of many souls.” 

But even his faith did not rise to the con- 
ception of the mighty result whereto this 
small beginning would grow, nor of the honor 
he should wear throughout all time as the first 
preacher and founder of American Methodism. 
“ He builded grander than he knew.” 

For some months he labored cordially with 
the new missionary evangelists, frequently oc- 
cupying the pulpit during their absence on 


52 


BARBARA HECK . 


preaching tours. During the following year, 
1770, he removed with his family, together 
with Paul and Barbara Heck and other Pala- 
tine Methodists, to Salem, Washington County, 
New York. Previous to his leaving his recent 
spiritual charge, the trustees of Wesley Chapel 
presented him, in the name of the congrega- 
tion, the sum of two pounds and five shillings, 
“ for the purchase of a Concordance, as a me- 
mento of his pastoral connection with them.”* 

“ Brethren,” he said, with faltering voice, 
as he thanked them for the kind donation, “I 
need no memento to keep your memory green. 
Ye are in my heart to die and live with you ; 
but the hand of Providence beckons me else- 
where. No more welcome present could you 
have given me. A Concordance I have long 
desired to have, that I might the better study 
the Word of God, and bring forth and com- 
pare its hidden treasures. Now that your 
love has placed it within my reach, I shall 
prize it for a double reason, and when distant 
from you I shall still feel united with you by 

* This Concordance is now in the library of the Wesleyan 
Theological College, Montreal. 


ELPANSION OF METHODISM . 


53 


a tender tie, as I study by its help the sacred 
volume that we so much love. The Lord 
bless you and keep you. The Lord make his 
face to shine upon you, and be gracious unto 
you. The Lord lift up the light of his con- 
tenance upon you and give you peace. Amen!” 

Embarking in a small river sloop on the 
broad bosom of the Hudson, these pioneers of 
Methodism made their way slowly up that 
noble stream. Its stately banks, not then as 
now adorned with elegant villas, were almost 
in a state of nature. The towering Palisades 
reared their wall of rock, and the lofty Crow- 
nest, and Storm-king, and romantic Catskills 
were clothed with foliage to the very top. 
They sailed on past the quaint Dutch town of 
Albany, and the site of the present city of 
Troy, then a wilderness. A couple of ox- 
teams conveyed the settlers from the river to 
their new homes on the fertile meadows of 
the Pawlet River. This now flourishing and 
populous part of the country was then a wil- 
derness. But under these new conditions 
these godly pioneers ceased not to prosecute 
their providential mission — the founding of 


54 


BARBARA HECK. 


Methodism in the New World. While they 
sowed with seed-grain the virgin soil of their 
new farms, they sought also to scatter the good 
seed of the kingdom in the hearts of their 
neighbors. Embury continued his labors as a 
faithful local preacher, and soon among the 
sparse and scattered population of settlers 
was formed a “ class ” — the first within the 
bounds of the Troy Conference — which has 
since multiplied to two hundred and seventy- 
seven preachers and forty-four thousand mem- 
bers. 

Embury seems to have won the confidence 
and esteem of his rural neighbors, no less for 
his practical business efficiency and sound 
judgment than for his sterling piety, as we 
find him officiating as magistrate as well as 
preacher. 

He received, while mowing in his field in 
the summer of 1775 — the year of the outbreak 
of the Revolutionary War — so severe an injury 
that he died suddenly, at the early age of 
forty-five. His end was pre-eminently joy and 
peace. Though suffering much physical pain, 
his soul rejoiced in God. “ Now, Eord, let- 



GRAVE OF PHILIP EMBURY, ASHGROVE, N. Y. 


























































































































* 



































EXPANSION OF METHODISM . 


55 


test thou thy servant depart in peace,” were 
his dying words, “ for mine eyes have seen 
thy salvation. The mustard-seed of Meth- 
odism which, through God’s grace, has been 
planted in this New World, shall yet grow to 
be a mighty tree, whose. branches shall fill the 
whole land.” He knew not, good man, that 
seven years of tribulation were to scourge his 
adopted country, and that he was but taken 
away from the evil to come. He was buried, 
after the manner of the primitive settlers, on 
the farm on which he had lived and labored. 
“After reposing,” writes Dr. Stevens, “ fifty- 
seven years in his solitary grave without a 
memorial, his remains were disinterred with 
solemn ceremonies, and borne by a large pro- 
cession to the Ashgrove burial-ground, where 
their resting-place is marked by a monument 
recording that he ‘ was the first to set in mo- 
tion a train of measures which resulted in the 
founding of John Street Church, the cradle of 
American Methodism, and the introduction of 
a system which has beautified the earth with 
salvation and increased the joys of heaven.’” 


Chapter V. 

WAR-CLOUDS— EXILE. 

F OR some time before the death of Em- 
bury, the war-clouds had been gathering 
which were to wrap the continent in a blaze. 
The dissatisfaction of the majority of the 
Colonists with their condition of political vas- 
salage was growing stronger and stronger. 

In order to meet the heavy military expen- 
diture of the Colonies, the Home Government 
imposed a stamp duty on all legal documents. 
The Colonists denied the right of the Impe- 
rial Parliament to impose taxes without their 
consent. The Stamp Act was repealed in a 
year, but the obnoxious principle of taxation 
without representation was maintained by a 
light duty on tea and some other articles. The 
Colonists refused the taxed commodities, and a 
party of men, disguised as Indians, threw into 
Boston harbor (December 16, 1773), the tea 
on board the East India vessels, amounting to 

three hundred and forty chests. Parliament, 
56 


WA R-CL O UDS— EXILE. 


57 


incensed at this “ flat rebellion,” closed the 
port of Boston, and, against the protest and 
warning of some of England’s greatest states- 
men, sent troops to enforce submission. 

A Continental Congress was convened at 
Philadelphia (September, 1774), which peti- 
tioned the king, but in vain, for the continu- 
ance of the Colonial liberties. The creation, 
by the Quebec Act (1774), of a great Northern 
province, whose government was administered 
by agents responsible only to the Crown, was 
regarded as fraught with peril to the interests 
of the older Colonies. It was thought that 
the dissatisfaction among the British popula- 
tion of Canada, and, perhaps, a desire on the 
part of the French to avenge the wrongs of 
the conquest, would induce not a few of the 
people of Canada to join the revolt against 
Great Britain. Circular letters were, there- 
fore, sent to Canada and Nova Scotia, inviting 
the inhabitants to send delegates to the Con- 
tinental Congress at Philadelphia. 

Meanwhile, at Concord and Lexington 
(April 19, 1775), while Embury lay upon his 
death-bed, occurred the collision between the 


58 


BARBARA HECK. 


armed Colonists and the soldiers of the king, 
which precipitated the War of Independence, 
and the loss to Great Britain oi her American 
Colonies. The bruit of war became louder 
and louder, and filled the whole land. 

“Nay, dear heart,” Embury had said to his 
faithful and loving wife, as she repeated the 
rumors of the outbreak which had reached 
the quiet valley in which they dwelt ; “ nay, 
dear heart ; this is only some temporary tu- 
mult. The Colonists surely will not rebel 
against His Majesty, when every Sunday in all 
the churches they pray, 1 From all sedition, 
privy conspiracy, and rebellion, good Lord de- 
liver us !’ ” 

But the loyal heart did not rightly inter- 
pret the signs of the times. The country was 
ripe for revolt. From the mountains of Ver- 
mont to the everglades of Georgia, a patriotic 
enthusiasm burst forth. A Continental army 
was organized. General Gage was besieged 
in Boston. A small force was collected in 
Vermont for the capture of Fort Ticonderoga. 
On the night of May 9th it crossed Eake 
Champlain, and at dawn next morning eighty- 


WAR-CL O UDS— EXILE. • 


59 


three men surprised and captured, without a 
blow, the fort which had cost Great Britain 
eight millions sterling, two great campaigns, 
and a multitude of precious lives to win. 
Crown Point, with its slender garrison of 
twelve men, surrendered at the first summons, 
and thus the “ gateway of Canada” was in the 
hands of the insurgent Colonists. At Bunker 
Hill (June 17, 1775), the Colonial volunteers 
proved their ability to cope with the veteran 
troops of England. 

By this time, however, Philip Embury had 
passed away from the strifes and tumults of 
earth to the everlating peace and beatitude of 
heaven. Many of the loyal Palatines, whose 
forefathers had enjoyed a refuge from perse- 
cution under the British flag, would not share 
the revolt against the mother country of the 
American colonists. On the outbreak of the 
Revolutionary War, therefore, they maintained 
their allegiance to the old flag by removing to 
Lower Canada. It was not without a wrench 
of their heartstrings that they left the pleas- 
ant homes they had made, and the grave of 
their departed religious teacher and guide, 


6o 


BARBARA HECK, 


and set their faces once more resolutely to- 
ward the wilderness. 

“ Why not cast in your lot with us, and fight 
for your rights and liberty ?” asked one of 
their neighbors who had caught the fever of 
revolt. 

“ The service that we love is no bondage,” 
spoke up brave-hearted Barbara Heck, “ but 
truest liberty ; and we have, under the old 
flag beneath which we were born, all the rights 
that we want — the right to worship God ac- 
cording to the dictates of our conscience, none 
daring to molest us or make us afraid.” 

“ If fight we must,” chimed in Paul Heck, 
although he was a man of unwarlike dispo- 
sition, “ we will fight for the old flag under 
which we have enjoyed peace and prosperity.” 

For conscience’ sake, therefore, this little 
band of loyal subjects left their fertile farms, 
their pleasant homes, their flocks and herds. 
They sold what they could, at great sacrifice, 
to their revolutionary neighbors, who, while 
they respected their character, were not averse 
to making gain out of what they regarded as 
their fanatical loyalty. When the wheat har- 


WA R-CL O UDS— EXILE. 


6l 


vest had been reaped, the exiles, reserving 
sufficient for their maintenance during their 
journey, turned the rest into money for their 
future necessities. 

Two rude-looking and unwieldly bateaux 
had been provided for the long journey over 
unknown waters to the king’s loyal Province 
of Canada. In it were placed some simple 
household gear — bedding and other necessities. 
Among the most precious articles of freight 
were Philip Embury’s much-prized Concord- 
ance and Barbara Heck’s old German Bible. 
A nest was made in the bedding for the five 
children of Paul and Barbara Heck — the old- 
est and youngest, bright-eyed girls, aged ten 
and two respectively, the others three sturdy 
boys — and for the young children of Mary Em- 
bury. The fair young widow sat in the stern to 
steer the little bark which bore the germs of 
Canadian Methodism, while the matronly Bar- 
bara cared for the children. Paul Heck took 
his place at the oar — aided by his friend, John 
Eawrence, a grave, God-fearing Methodist, 
who had been his companion in travel from 
their dear old island home. In another boat 

- 5 


62 


BARBARA HECK . 


were their fellow-voyagers, Peter Switzer and 
Joel Dulmage, with their wives and little ones. 
Several of their Palatine neighbors, who in- 
tended soon after to follow them, caine down 
to the river side to see them off and wish them 
“ God-speed. ” 

“God will be our guide as he was the Guide 
of our fathers,” said Paul Heck, reverently, as 
he knelt upon the thwarts and commended to 
his care both those who journeyed, and those 
who, for the present, should remain. 

“ My heart feels strangely glad,” said Bar- 
bara Heck, the light of faith burning in her 
eyes ; “ we are in the hollow of God’s hand, 
and shall be kept as the apple of his eye. 
Naught can harm us while he is on our side.” 

The last farewells were spoken, the oars 
struck the water, the bateaux glided down 
the stream, the voices of the voyagers and of 
those upon the shore blending sweetly in the 
hymn : 

“ Our souls are in his mighty hand, 

And he shall keep them still; 

And you and I shall surely stand 
With him on Zion’s hill. 


WAR-CL O UDS — EXILE. 


O what a joyful meeting there! 

In robes of white arrayed, 

Palms in our hands we all shall bear, 
And crowns upon our head. 

Then let us lawfully contend, 

And fight our passage through ; 
Bear in our faithful minds the end, 
And keep the prize in view.” 


Chapter VI. 

UNDER NORTHERN STARS. 


LL day the Methodist refugees glided down 



the winding stream, through scenes of 
sylvan loveliness. Towards sunset they caught 
a glimpse of the golden sheen of the beautiful 
South Bay, a narrow inlet of Lake Champlain, 
glowing in the light of the fading day like the 
sea of glass mingled with fire. They landed 
for the night on the site of the pleasant town 
of Whitehall, then a dense forest. A rude tent 
was erected among the trees for the women 
and children, and a simple booth of branches 
for the men. The camp-fire was built. The 
bacon frying in the pan soon sent forth its 
savory odor, and the wheaten cakes were baked 
on the hot griddle. The children, with shouts 
of merry glee, gathered wild raspberries in the 
woods. A little carefully-hoarded tea — a great 
luxury at the time — was steeped, and, that 
nothing might be lost, the leaves were after- 
wards eaten with bread. A hearty, happy 


UNDER NORTHERN STARS. 65 

meal was made ; a hymn and prayer con 
eluded the evening; and the same simple serv- 
ice began the morning, after a night of refresh- 
ing sleep. 

The second day the bateaux stretched out 
into the placid bay, and, wafted by the soft 
south wind, skirted along the wooded shores. 
Sailing up the narrow channel, between lofty 
banks, the voyagers passed the still formidable 
forts of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, mem- 
orable for the bloody struggles of the war. 
Those steep slopes, only sixteen years before, 
had been gory with the best blood of England 
and France. But the ravelins and demilunes, 
the curtains and casemates, the ramparts and 
fosse of these fortresses, under the kindly min- 
istries of nature, were clothed with softest ver- 
dure and sweetest wild-flowers ; and the ex- 
iles recked not of the bloody fray which had 
incarnadined the spot. So may the bitter 
memories of the unnatural strife between the 
mother and the daughter land be buried for- 
ever beneath the kindly growth of the gentle 
charities and sweet amenities of friendly in- 
tercourse ! 


66 


BARBARA HECK . 


Day after day the rude bateaux, impelled 
by oar and sail, glided up the broad and beau- 
tiful Eake Champlain. Its gently sloping 
shores were then almost a wilderness, with 
only here and there the solitary clearing of an 
adventurous pioneer. On the border-land be- 
tween the possessions of French and English, 
it had been for over a hundred years the battle- 
ground of the warfare of the rival races for 
the mastery of the continent. In the back- 
ground rose the forest-mantled Adirondacks, 
which are, even to this day, the home of the 
lynx and wolf, the bear and catamount. The 
crystal tide over which they sailed was des- 
tined in after years to be plowed by hostile 
keels, and crimsoned by kindred bloodshed in 
unhallowed strife. 

All went well with the exiles till the after- 
noon of the third day. While in the widest 
part of the lake, wearily rowing in a dead calm, 
a sudden thunderstorm arose that for a time 
threatened them with no small peril. The 
day had been very sultry, with not a breath of 
air stirring. The burning sunlight was re- 
flected from the steel-like surface of the water. 


UNDER NORTHERN STARS. 67 

The children were fretful with the heat and 
the oarsmen weary with their toil. Presently 
a grateful coolness stole through the air, and 
a gentle breeze refreshed their frames and filled 
the swelling sails, and at the same time a cloud 
veiled the fervid beams of the sun. 

“ Thank God,” said Barbara Heck, “ for 
this change!” and the children laughed with 
glee. 

Presently, Paul Heck, who had been lei- 
surely scanning the horizon, sprang up with a 
start. 

“Down with your sail!” he shouted to his 
fellow-voyagers, Switzer and Dulmage, whose 
boat was not far off, pointing at the same time 
toward the western horizon, and then eagerly 
taking in and close-reefing his own sail. 

To a careless eye there was no sign of dan- 
ger; but a closer observation revealed a white 
line of foam, advancing like a race-horse over 
the waves. 

“Lawrence, take the helm! Get her be- 
fore the squall!” he continued; and scarcely 
had the movement been accomplished when 
what seemed a hurricane smote their frail bark. 


68 


BARBARA HECK . 


The waters were lashed to foam. The 
rising waves raced alongside as if eager to 
overwhelm them. The air grew suddenly 
dark; the lurid lightning flashed, followed in- 
stantly by the loud roll of thunder, and by a 
drenching torrent of rain. 

“The Lord preserve us!” exclaimed Law- 
rence. “I can scarcely keep her head before 
the wind, and if one of these waves strike us 
abeam, it will shatter or overturn the bateau.” 

But Barbara Heck, unmoved by the rush 
of the storm, sat serene and calm, holding the 
youngest child in her arms, while the others 
nestled in terror at her feet. In the words of 
another storm-tossed voyager upon another 
boisterous sea, seventeen hundred years be- 
fore, she said, quietly: 

“Fear not; be of good cheer; there shall 
not a hair fall from the head of one of us.” 

Enhearted by her faith and courage, her 
husband toiled manfully to keep the frail ba- 
teau from falling into the trough of the sea. 
Lightly it rode the crested waves, and at last, 
after a strenuous struggle, both boats got 
under the lee of Isle-aux-Noix, and the voy- 


UNDER NORTHERN STARS. 69 

agers gladly disembarked in a sheltered cove, 
their limbs cramped and stiffened by long 
crouching, in their water-soaked clothing, in 
the bottom of the boats. A bright fire was 
soon blazing, the wet clothes dried as fast as 
possible, and over a hearty meal of bacon, 
bread, and coffee, they gave thanks with glad 
hearts for their providential deliverance, and 
the stormy lake sobbed itself to rest. Like 
the fiery eye of a revengeful Cyclops, the sun 
set lurid in the west, a dark cloud shutting 
down upon it like a huge eyelid. But there in 
the east gleamed a glorious rainbow, spanning 
the heavens in a perfect arch, the seal of 
God’s covenant with man, the presage of the 
happiness and prosperity of our storm-tossed 
voyagers. 

At Isle-aux-Noix they found a British out- 
post, in a log block-house, the sole defenders 
of this gateway of Canada. They were 
guided by a corporal to the entrance of the 
Richelieu River, by which they sought the 
St. Lawrence and Montreal, the desired haven 
of their hopes. It was very pleasant gliding 
down the rapid river, between its forest-clad 


70 


BARBARA HECK. 


banks, now tinged with the glowing colors of 
the early autumn foliage. Along that placid 
stream, long known as the “ River of the Iro- 
quois,” the cruel raids and forays of the 
French and English, and their Indian allies, 
for a hundred years, were made. At the ham- 
let of Sorel, at its mouth, the red-cross flag, 
which the exiles loved so well, waved over a 
stone fort, constructed by the French as a de- 
fense against the dreaded incursions of the 
Iroquois. 

Here, although they received hospitable 
entertainment from the commandant of the 
little garrison, they made but slight delay. 
Embarking once more, they urged their ba- 
teaux up the stream of the majestic St. Law- 
rence, hugging the shore in order to avoid the 
strength of the current. 

“I never thought there was so large a river 
in the world,” said Mary Embury, as she 
scanned its broad expanse. “I believe it is 
twice as wide as the Hudson at New York.” 

“ More like four times as wide,” replied Paul 
Heck. “If it were not for its rapid current, 
one would hardly think it was a river at all.” 


UNDER NORTHERN STARS . 7 1 

The strength of this current made itself 
so strongly felt at times that the men had to 
walk along the shore, dragging the boats by 
a rope, while the women assisted with the oar. 

It was with glad hearts that the weary 
voyagers beheld the forest-crowned height, 
the grassy ramparts, and the long stone wall 
along the river front of the mediaeval-looking 
town of Montreal. A red-coated sentry paced 
up and down the rude landing-stage, and an- 
other mounted guard at the ponderous iron- 
studded wooden gate. Paul Heck and his 
wife and John Lawrence set out to find tem- 
porary lodgings, leaving the others to “keep 
the gear,” or, as Barbara Heck phrased it, “to 
bide by the stuff.” 

The pioneer explorers, entering the “water- 
gate,” first turned towards the long, low line 
of barracks; for their hearts warmed toward 
the red-coats, the visible sign of the sover- 
eignty of that power for which they had sac- 
rificed so much. Their first reception, how- 
ever, was rather disheartening to their loyal 
enthusiasm. In reply to Paul Heck’s civil 
inquiry of an idle soldier, who was lounging 


72 


BARBARA HECK. 


at the gate, if there were any Methodists in 
the town, the low-bred fellow replied : 

“Methodies? W’ot ’s that, I’d like to 
knaw?” 

The explanation that they were the follow- 
ers of John Wesley did not throw any light 
on the subject. 

“John Wesley? Who was he? Oi niver 
heard of un. Zay, Ned, do ’ee knaw any 
Methodies hereabouts?” 

“Methodies?” replied the man addressed, 
pausing in his operation of pipe-claying his 
belt and bayonet-pouch. “O, ay! ’e means 
them rantin’ Swaddlers, w’ot was in the King’s 
Own in Flanders, d’ye mind? The straight- 
laced hypocrites! An honest soldier could n’t 
drain a jack, or win a main at cards, or kiss a 
lass, or curse a John Crapaud, but they ’d 
drop down on ’im. Noa, ther’ bean’t noan on 
’em ’ere, and w’ot ’s more, us doan’t want noan 
on ’em, nayther.” 

“Well, we’re Methodists,” spoke up Bar- 
bara Heck, never ashamed of her colors. “So 
take us to your captain, please.” 

“What d’ye say? You are?” exclaimed 


UNDER NORTHERN STARS. 73 

the fellow, dropping both pipe-clay and belt. 
'‘Well, you ’re a plucky un, I must say; but 
you ’re just like all the rest on ’em. Here, 
Geoffrey,” he went on, calling to an orderly, 
who was grooming an officer’s horse, “take 
the parson and ’is wife to the captain.” 

“Taake ’em yoursen. Oi bean’t noan o’ 
your servant,” replied that irate individual. 

The altercation was speedily interrupted 
by the presence of the officer himself, clatter- 
ing down the stone steps, with his jangling 
spurs and clanging sword. 

“Hello! What’s the row with you fellows, 
now? Beg pardon, madam!” he continued, 
taking off his gold-laced cocked-hat, with the 
characteristic politeness of a British officer, 
t§ Barbara Heck. “Can I be of any service 
to you ?” 

“We have just arrived from the province 
of New York,” replied Barbara, making an 
old-fashioned courtesy, “and we’re seeking 
temporary lodgings in the town.” 

“From New York, eh? Come to the 
council-room, please, and see the governor.” 
And he led the way along the narrow Rue 


74 


BARBARA HECK . 


Notre Dame to a long low building, with 
quaint dormer windows, in front of which the 
red-cross flag of St. George floated from a 
lofty flagstaff, and a couple of sentries paced 
to and fro in heavy marching order. This 
venerable building, almost unchanged in as- 
pect, is now occupied as the Jacques Cartier 
Normal School. It had been erected as the 
residence of the French governor; but at the 
time of our story it was the quarters of Col- 
onel Burton, the military governor of the 
District of Montreal, and commandant of His 
Majesty’s forces therein. It was subsequently 
occupied, during the American invasion, by 
Brigadier-General Wooster, and by his suc- 
cessor, the traitor, Benedict Arnold. It was 
here, also, that the first printing-press evgr 
used in Montreal was erected by Benjamin 
Franklin, in order to print the Proclamation 
and Address to Canada. 

After a moment’s delay in a small ante- 
room, the officer conducted our travelers, 
somewhat bewildered by the contrast between 
his respectful treatment and that of his rude 
underlings, into a long low apartment, with 


UNDER NORTHERN STARS. 


75 


flat timbered ceiling. In this room the present 
writer, on a recent visit, found a number of old 
historic portraits, probably of the period to 
which we now refer. 

Seated at a large, green-covered table, on 
which lay his sword and a number of charts 
and papers, pay-rolls, and the like, was an 
alert, grizzled-looking officer of high rank. 
Near him sat his secretary, busily writing. 

“Ah! be seated, pray. Pierre, chairs for 
the lady and gentlemen,” said the governor, 
nodding to a French valet, and adding, “You 
may wait in the anteroom. I hear,” he went 
on, turning to Paul Heck, “that you have come 
from the disloyal province of New York?” 

“ Yes, your worship,” said Paul Heck, rather 
nervously fumbling his hat. 

“Say ‘his excellency,’” put in the secre- 
tary, to the further discomfiture of poor Paul, 
who had never before been in the presence of 
such an exalted personage. 

“Never mind, Saunders,” said the gov- 
ernor, good-naturedly; and then, to his rustic 
audience: “Feel quite at home, good people. 
I wish to learn the state of feeling in New 


76 


BARBARA HECK. 


York, and whether there is any loyalty to the 
old flag left.” 

“O yes, your worship — your excellence, I 
mean,” said Paul; “there are yet seven thou- 
sand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” 

“ ‘Seven thousand,’ ‘Baal’ — what does the 
man mean, Featherstone?” 

“Blest if I know, your excellency,” said 
Colonel Featherstone, who, like the governor, 
was more familiar with the Letters of Lord 
Chesterfield than with the Hebrew Scriptures. 

“He means,” said Barbara Heck, “that 
there is yet a remnant who are faithful to 
their king, and pray daily for the success of 
the old flag.” 

“Ah! that’s more to the purpose. But 
how many did you say, my good man, and 
how do you know the number? Have they 
any organization or enrollment?” 

“I said seven thousand, sir — your excel- 
lence, I mean — because that ’s the number 
Elijah said were faithful to the God of Israel; 
a perfect number, you know. But just how 
many there are, I can not say. The Lord 
knoweth them that are his.” 


UNDER NORTHERN STARS. 77 

“A pragmatical fellow, this,” said the gov- 
ernor to Colonel Featherstone ; and again ad- 
dressing Heck, he asked: “Well, what are they 
going to do about it? Will they fight?” 

“ Many of them eschew carnal weapons, 
your excellence. I ’m not a man of war my- 
self. I have come here, with my wife and 
little ones, to try to serve God and to honor 
the king in peace and quietness; and there ’s 
a-many more, your excellence, who will follow 
as soon as they can get away.” 

“Good! that has the right ring. We want 
a lot of true-hearted, loyal subjects to colonize 
this new province, and you are welcome, and 
as many more like you as may come,” said 
the governor, rubbing his hands, and taking 
a snuff with Colonel Featherstone. He then 
conversed kindly and at some length about 
their plans and prospects. “I doubt if you 
can find lodging with any English family,” he 
said. “There are not many English here yet, 
you see; but I will give you a note to a re- 
spectable Canadian, who keeps a quiet inn ;” 
and he rang his table-bell, and wrote a hasty 
note. “Here, Pierre, take these good people 


78 


BARBARA HECK . 


to the Blanche Croix [the White Cross Inn], 
and give this note to Jean Baptiste La Farge. 
I will send for you again,” he added, as he 
bowed his guests politely out of the room, 
kindly repressing their exclamations: 

“A thousand thanks, your worship — your 
excellence, I mean,” said Paul Heck; and, 
added Barbara, “The Lord reward you for 
your kindness to strangers in a strange land!” 


Chapter VII. 

WAR SCENES. 



HE ‘‘Blanche Croix ” was a small inn in 


* a narrow street running back to the wall 
at the rear of the town. A reminiscence of 
this wall is still maintained in the name For- 
tification Lane. The inn was of one story, 
with thick stone walls, which rose in immense 
gables, with huge chimneys. The steep roof, 
in which were two rows of small dormer win- 
dows, was almost twice as high as the walls, 
which gave the quaint old house the appear- 
ance of a very small man with a very large 
hat. Mine host, Jean Baptiste La Farge, a 
rubicund old fellow, who wore, as the badge 
of his calling as town baker, a white cap and 
apron, was at first indisposed to entertain the 
wayfarers. “Dis is one auberge Canadienne. 
Me no like de Englees. Dey take my con- 


tree.” 


The pert Pierre called attention to the 


79 


8o 


BARBARA HECK. 


governor’s note, which La Farge held in his 
hand without looking at it. 

“Well, what is dis? You know I not 
read.” 

Pierre glibly rattled off the contents of 
the note, commending the travelers to his 
good offices, which produced a remarkable 
change in the manner of Jean Baptiste. 

“O, if it will oblige Monsieur le Gover- 
neur, I will have de grand plaiser to enter- 
tain messieurs and des madames. Marie! 
Marie!” he called to his wife — a black-eyed 
dame in bright-red kirtle and snowy Norman 
cap — and asked her to conduct the women to 
the guest chambers. With a bright smile and 
polite courtesy, a universal language under- 
stood by all — she knew no English — she led 
them up the narrow stair to the attic chamber, 
while the men went to bring their little effects 
from the boat. 

“This is more like the little cabin on ship- 
board than like a house,” said Barbara Heck. 
“But see what a pretty view,” she continued, 
as she looked out of the little window that 
overlooked the town wall. Just without a 


WAR SCENES. 


8 


bright streamlet rippled through a green 
meadow — it now flows darkling underground, 
beneath the pavement of Craig Street — and 
beyond rose the green forest-covered slope of 
Mount Royal. 

“What’s this?” asked Mary Embury, who 
had been exploring the little room, pointing 
to a small china-ware image of the Madonna. 

“Ea Sainte Vierge, la Mere de Dieu,” re- 
plied Marie, at the same time crossing herself 
and courtesying to the image. 

“Why, Barbara,” exclaimed the young 
widow, “she must be a heathen to worship 
that idol.” 

“They must be Catholics,” replied Barbara. 
“Many’s the one I’ve known in dear old Ire- 
land; but there they had pictures in their 
houses — not images.” 

“Won’t they murder us some night?” 
asked the timid widow, in a low whisper. 

“No fear,” answered Barbara, endowed 
both with more courage and more charity. 
“I doubt not they are honest people; and as 
we have clearer light, we must try to teach 
them better.” 


82 


BARBARA HECK . 


The loyalist immigrants were anxious to 
take up land, and to earn their living by till- 
ing the soil. But in the disturbed state of 
the country and threatened American inva- 
sion, the governor dissuaded them from it, 
and offered them employment in strengthen- 
ing the defensive works of the town. Cap- 
tain Featherstone had an empty storehouse 
at the barracks fitted up for their reception, 
and they were soon comfortably settled in a 
home of their own. 

“ Sure this is better,” said Mary Embury, 
looking from the upper windows over the 
wall, upon the broad and shining reaches of 
the river, “than being cooped up in that 
small attic; and to see that heathen creature 
bowing and praying to them idols fairly made 
my flesh creep.” 

“Poor thing!” replied Barbara; “she knows 
no better. I wish I could speak her lan- 
guage. I long to tell her to go to the Savior at 
once, without praying to either saint or angel.” 

We turn now to notice briefly the con- 
current public events of the province. Sir 
Guy Carleton, the governor-general of Can- 


WAR SCENES. 


83 


ada, resolved to recover, if possible, Crown 
Point and Ticonderoga, which, as we have 
seen, had been seized by the insurgent Ameri- 
can Colonists. He called upon the seigneurs 
to enroll their tenants or censitaires , in accord- 
ance with the terms of the feudal tenure by 
which they held their lands. Many of the 
seigneurs responded promptly to this appeal, 
but the tenantry, who had not forgotten the 
hardships of the late war, denied their lia- 
bility to military service. The governor, who 
had scarcely eight hundred regular soldiers at 
his command for the protection of the prov- 
ince, declared martial law to be in force, and 
endeavored to call out the militia by procla- 
mation. But even this appeal, backed up as 
it was by the mandate of Bishop De Briand, 
exhorting the people to take up arms, was in- 
effectual. 

The American Congress now resolved on 
the invasion of Canada, believing that the re- 
volted Colonists had many sympathizers in 
the country, who were only waiting for the 
presence of an armed force to declare in favor 
of the Revolution. 


8 4 


BARBARA HECK. 


In the month of September an American 
force of a thousand men, under General Schuy- 
ler, advanced by way of Lake Champlain against 
Montreal ; and another, under Colonel Arnold, 
by way of the Kennebec and Chaudiere, 
against Quebec. General Carleton still en- 
deavored, but at first with only very partial 
success, to enlist the co-operation of the 
French for the defense of the country. They 
were not, indeed, seduced from their alle- 
giance by the blandishments of the revolted 
Colonies, but, for the most part, they contin- 
ued apathetic, till their homes were in danger. 
Some of the French Canadians, however, as 
well as English, sympathized with the in- 
vaders, and gave them both passive and 
active assistance. 

While Schuyler was held in check at Fort 
St. John, on the Richelieu, Colonel Ethan 
Allen, with some three hundred men, ad- 
vanced to Montreal. Crossing the river by 
night, he attempted to surprise the town; but 
the vigilance of the little garrison frustrated 
his design. 

In the dim dawn of a September morning — 


WAR SCENES. 


85 


it was the 25th of the month — Barbara Heck 
was aroused by an unusual commotion in 
the barrack-square. It was before the hour 
of the reveille, and yet the shrill blare of the 
bugle rent the air, and the rapid roll and 
throb of drums beat to arms. The soldiers 
rushed from their quarters to take their places 
in their companies, buckling on their belts 
and adjusting their accouterments as they ran. 
The sharp, quick words of command of the 
officers were heard, and the clatter of the 
muskets as the men grounded their arms on 
the stone pavement. Ball cartridge was 
served out, and the little company filed 
through the narrow streets and out of the 
western gate of the town, where Notre 
Dame now intersects McGill Street. 

Four of the English force were slain, but 
one of these was Major Carsden, the officer 
in command, who had recklessly exposed 
his life. Several, however, were severely 
wounded, and in nursing these Barbara Heck 
and Mary Embury found opportunity for the 
exercise of their woman’s tenderness and 
sympathy. 


86 


BARBARA HECK . 


“Sure we left our comfortable homes,” 
said Mary Embury, “to escape these rude 
alarms of war, and here they are brought to 
our very door. But the will of God be done.” 

“I doubt if it be his will,” replied Barbara. 
“I fear it is more the work of the devil. 

‘ Whence come wars and fighting among 
you?’ says St. James. ‘Ye lust and have 
not, ye kill and desire to have.’ How long, 
O Lord, how long will men thus seek to de- 
stroy each other? Surely the wrath of man 
worketh not the righteousness of God. But 
God permits this evil, I fear, for the hardness 
of men’s hearts.” 

Scarcely had the wailing music of the 
Dead March, which had followed the slain 
major to the grave, ceased, when the shrill 
scream of the pipe and rapid throb of the 
drum invited the townsmen to enroll for an 
attack on the enemy, who were besieging 
Forts St. John and Chambly. 

“Now, my fine fellow,” said Major Feath- 
erstone, who had succeeded to the rank and 
title of his slain superior officer, to Paul Heck, 
“why don’t you take service for the king? 


WAR SCENES. 


87 


With your education and steady habits you ’re 
sure to be corporal before the campaign is 
over.” 

“I have taken service under the best of 
kings,” said Paul, devoutly, “and I desire no 
better. And as for King George, God bless 
him, I am willing to suffer in body and estate 
for his cause; but fight I can not. I would 
ever hear the voice of the Master whom I 
serve, saying : ‘ Put up thy sword in its sheath.’ ” 

“You’re an impracticable fellow, Heck. 
How ever would the world wag if everybody 
was of your way of thinking?” 

“I doubt not the widows and orphans of 
His Majesty’s slain soldiers think it would 
wag on better than it does without so much 
fighting. And if we believe the Bible, we 
must believe the day is coming when the 
nations shall beat their swords into plow- 
shares and their spears into pruning-hooks, 
and learn war no more.” 

“Yes, I suppose so,” said the major; and 
tapping his sword by his side, he added: “But 
not in my time will this good blade’s occupa- 
tion be gone.” 


88 


BARBARA HECK. 


“I fear not, more’s the pity,” said Paul 
with a sigh. 

“But the Methodists are not all like you,” 
the major continued. “When I was an en- 
sign in the ‘King’s Own,’ in Flanders, there 
were a lot of Methodists in the army. In my 
own company there was a fellow named 
Haime, a tremendous fellow to preach and 
pray. In barracksdie was as meek as a lamb, 
let the - fellows shy their belts and boots at 
him, and persecute him to no end. But when 
he was before the enemy he was the bravest 
man in the army. Another fellow named 
Clements, in the Heavy Dragoons, had his left 
arm shattered at Fontenoy. But he would n’t 
go to the rear. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I’ve got my 
sword-arm yet,’ and he rode with his troop 
like a hero, against the French cuirassiers.” 

Paul’s eyes had kindled while listening to 
the tale, but he merely said: “I judge them 
not. A man must follow his own lights. To 
his own master he standeth or falleth. But 
they died well, as well as lived well, the 
Methodists in the army, I’m sure.” 

“ That they did. I never saw the like,” con- 


WAR SCENES. 


89 


tinued the major, with genuine admiration. 
‘‘There was a Welshman named Evans — 
John Evans — an artilleryman, a great hand to 
preach too, had both his legs taken off by a 
chain-shot at Maestricht. They laid him on 
a gun-caisson, and he did nothing but praise 
God and exhort the men around him as long 
as he could speak. I ’ll never forget his last 
words. His captain asked him if he suffered 
much. ‘Bless you, captain,’ he gasped, ‘I’m 
as happy as I can be out of heaven,’* and fell 
back dead. I never jeered at the Methodists 
since, as, I ’m sorry to say, I used to do before. 
I felt, and I ’m not ashamed to own it, that 
there was something in religion that they un- 
derstood, and that I did n’t.” 

“Dear major, you may understand it and 
know all about it. The dear Lord will teach 
you, if you only will ask him.” 

“Thank you, my good fellow. But I see 
I can’t make a recruit of you for active serv- 
ice. I ’ll have to make you hospital sergeant.” 

“I would fain make a recruit of you, sir, 

* For these incidents, and many others like them, see 
Stevens’s History of Methodism. 


90 


BARBARA HECK . 


for the best of masters, in the best of service. 
As for the hospital, fain and glad I ’ll be to do 
all that I can for both the bodies and the 
souls of my fellow-men, especially for them 
that need it most. But I ’ll do it for love, not 
for money. I can’t take the king’s shilling.” 

John Lawrence, however, did not share the 
scruples of his friend, Paul Heck, and eagerly 
volunteered for the relief of Fort St. John, 
on the Richelieu . Colonel Richard Mont- 
gomery, a brave and generous Irish gentle- 
man, whose tragic fate has cast a halo around 
his memory, had succeeded Schuyler in the 
command of the American invading expedition. 

On the 31st of October, General Carleton 
attempted, in thirty-four boats, to cross the 
St. Lawrence from Montreal, in order to re- 
lieve Fort St. John. A great crowd of the 
townspeople — the mothers, wives, and chil- 
dren of the volunteers, and other non-com- 
batants — gathered 011 the shore, or watched 
from the walls the departure of the little 
flotilla. From the windows of their own 
dwelling, Paul and Barbara Heck and Mary 
Kinbury followed with their prayers the ex- 


WAR SCENES. 


91 


pedition, in which they were the more inter- 
ested that it bore their friend and companion 
in exile, John Lawrence. Gallantly the ba- 
teaux rode the waves, and under the impulse 
of strong arms resisted the downward sweep 
of the current. The red coats gleamed and 
the bayonets flashed in the morning sun, as, 
with ringing cheer on cheer, boat after boat 
pushed off, and the music of fife and drum 
grew fainter and fainter as they receded from 
the shore. They had almost reached the op- 
posite bank, when, from out the bushes that 
lined the shore, where lay an ambush of three 
hundred men, there flashed a deadly volley of 
musketry, and the deep roar of two pieces of 
artillery boomed through the air. Instantly 
everything was in the direst confusion. Many 
men were wounded. Some of the boats w T ere 
shattered and began to sink. After a brief 
resistance, General Carleton gave the word to 
retreat, and the discomfited expedition slowly 
made its way back to Montreal. 

“The Lord have mercy upon them !” ex- 
claimed Barbara Heck, as from her window 
she saw the flash and heard the sound of the 


92 


BARBARA HECK. 


first fire. But she was even more startled by 
the sudden gasp of Mary Embury, beside her, 
and, looking round, she beheld her turn ashen 
pale and fall fainting to the floor. The usual 
restoratives of the period — cold water and 
burnt feathers — were speedily applied, and 
the swoon passed gradually away. 

“Dear heart,” said Barbara gently caress- 
ing her pale cheek, “ they are in the Lord’s 
hands. Shall not the Judge of all the earth 
do right?” 

“What has happened?” asked Mary Em- 
bury, in a weak, bewildered voice; and then, 
“O, I remember. It is not the Lord’s doings. 
It is those wicked men. Can they not let us 
bide in peace? Why do they follow us even 
here? Is — is John hurt?” she asked, blush- 
ing with eagerness. 

“No, Molly dear, thank God!” exclaimed 
Lawrence, bursting into the room. “Though 
we had a desperate time of it, and many a 
gallant fellow has got his death-blow, I fear. 
They want you, Barbara, in the hospital. 
Paul is there already. They are bringing in 
the wounded.” 


WAR SCENES. 


93 


“I can’t leave Mary, you see,” said Bar- 
bara, administering a cordial. 

“O yes, you can,” exclaimed the fair young 
matron, becoming rapidly convalescent. The 
safe return of John Lawrence seemed to have 
a more restorative effect than even the burnt 
feathers. There was a rather awkward self- 
consciousness on the part of each, of having 
betrayed feelings of which they had hardly, 
till that moment, been fully aware. It some- 
times happens that chemical solutions may 
become super-saturated with some salt, 
which, upon a sudden jar of the vessel, will 
shoot instantly into solid crystals. So also it 
may happen that certain feelings may be in 
unconscious solution, as it were, in our souls, 
which suddenly, under the agitating impulse 
of some great crisis, may crystallize into con- 
scious reality. So was it with these two hon- 
est and loving hearts. For years they had 
known each other well, and with growing es- 
teem. But since their common exile they 
had been drawn more together. The be- 
reaved young widow had leaned for sympathy 
upon the warm heart of Barbara Heck; but 

7 


94 


BARBARA HECK . 


she had unconsciously come to lean also for 
protection on the strong arm of John Law- 
rence. The peril through which he had just 
passed was the shock that revealed her feel- 
ings to herself. But the present, with its 
awful shadow of disaster and death, was no 
time for the indulgence of tender emotions. 
So Mary Embury busied herself, with Law- 
rence’s help, in tearing up sheets for bandages, 
and scraping lint for the wounded, who were 
being borne beneath the window on bloody 
litters to the barrack hospital. 


Chapter VIII. 

O, THE TONG AND CRUET WINTER ! 

S a consequence of the disaster recorded 



** in our last chapter, the American gen- 
eral, Robert Montgomery, advanced unopposed 
to Montreal. Dire was the commotion in the 
little town as the overwhelming force of the 
enemy approached. Orderlies galloped wildly 
through the streets, and the loud roll of the 
drum and sharp blare of the bugle pierced the 
ear of night. The little handful of troops 
were marshaled by the torchlight in the Place 
d’Armes, in front of the old parish church, 
which stood in the middle of what is now 
Notre Dame Street. It was a low-walled, high- 
roofed building, with dormer windows in the 
roof. In an open belfry hung the small bells, 
which, at the canonical hours, rang out their 
sweet chorus over the little town. Around 
the square, now lined with stately stone banks 
and public offices, was a row of quaint, high- 
roofed, many-dormered buildings. 


95 


96 


BARBARA HECK . 


It was a wild night in early November, the 
nth of the month, with high wind, but with- 
out rain. The clouds scudded swiftly across 
the sky, and the moonlight, from time to 
time, burst fitfully through their rifts, bring- 
ing into sharp contrast the illumined fronts of 
the houses and the deep shadow of the parish 
church. A bonfire was burning in the square, 
its ruddy gleam blending strangely with the 
wan light of the moon, and flashing back — 
now from the burnished bayonets, now from 
the polished accouterments of the troops. 
These — only a hundred and twenty in all — 
were drawn up in heavy marching order, to 
advance against the invaders. 

An earnest colloquy was proceeding be- 
tween General Carleton and a number of the 
leading merchants of the town. It was argued 
that the handful of troops was quite inade- 
quate to cope with the large invading force. 
General Carleton therefore harangued his lit- 
tle company of soldiers, and informed them 
that the best interests of the king and country 
would be promoted by a retreat upon Quebec, 
which was really the key of the possession of 


Oy THE LONG AND CRUEL WINTER! 97 

the Colony. They were therefore marched 
back to the barracks, and during the night 
employed in destroying such army stores as 
they could not carry off, to prevent their fall- 
ing into the hands of the Americans. Early 
next morning the little band, under command 
of Brigadier-General Prescott, with deep cha- 
grin written on their faces, marched out of 
the eastern gate of the town just as the strong 
force of Montgomery blew open with a grenade 
the western gate. 

Governor Carleton escaped only by being 
rowed, with muffled oars, by night, past the 
American guards, and so reached Quebec, 
which was now menaced by Benedict Arnold. 
The American general, Montgomery, promptly 
occupied the town, but treated the people 
with much consideration, and won their good- 
will by his generous disposition and affable 
manners. He made provision for the main- 
tenance of public order and administration of 
justice, and for nearly eight months the town 
remained in the hands of its captors. 

The chief struggle for the possession of 
Canada, however, took place around the walls 


98 


BARBARA HECK, 


of Quebec. The stirring events of that winter 
campaign we shall briefly trace before pro- 
ceeding with the narrative of the private for- 
tunes of the actors in our little story. 

General Benedict Arnold — who subse- 
quently gained eternal infamy by the base 
attempt to betray the fortress of West Point, 
committed to his keeping — had the previous 
summer visited Quebec, and had secret corre- 
spondents among its inhabitants. In the 
month of September, with a force of nearly a 
thousand men — among whom was Aaron Burr, 
a future Vice-President of the United States — 
he had toiled up the swift current of the Ken- 
nebec and Dead River to the head-waters of 
those streams. With incredible labor they 
conveyed their boats and stores through the 
tangled wilderness to the Chaudiere, and sailed 
down its tumultuous current to the St. Law- 
rence. Their sufferings, through hunger, cold, 
fatigue, and exposure, were excessive. They 
were reduced to eat the flesh of dogs, and 
even to gnaw the leather of their cartridge- 
boxes and shoes. Their barges had to be 
dragged against the rapid stream one hundred 


0 } THE LONG AND CRUEL WINTER! 99 

and eighty miles, and carried forty miles over 
rugged portages on men’s shoulders. The 
number of the invading force was reduced, by 
sickness, exhaustion, and desertion, to seven 
hundred men before they reached the St. Law- 
rence. Without artillery, with damaged guns 
and scanty ammunition, with wretched clothing 
and imperfect commissariat, they were to at- 
tempt the capture of the strongest fortress in 
America. 

The governor of Quebec had strengthened 
the defenses of the fortress-capital, and learn- 
ing the approach of Arnold, had carefully re- 
moved all the boats from the south side of 
the river. On the night of November the 
13th, Arnold, having constructed a number of 
canoes, conveyed the bulk of his meager army 
across the river, and, without opposition, 
climbed the cliff by Wolfe’s path, and ap- 
peared before the walls of the Upper Town. 
Having failed to surprise the town, and de- 
spairing, with his footsore and ragged regi- 
ments, with no artillery and with only five 
rounds of ammunition, of taking it by assault, 
he retired to Point-aux-Trembles, some twenty 


IOO 


BARBARA HECK. 


miles up the river, to wait a junction with 
Montgomery. 

Governor Carleton reached Quebec, and be- 
gan preparations for a vigorous resistance. 
Disaffected persons, and those unwilling to 
join in the defense of the town, were ordered 
to leave within four days. The entire popu- 
lation was about five thousand, and the garri- 
son numbered eighteen hundred in all, con- 
sisting of about a thousand British and Can- 
adian militia, three hundred regulars, and a 
body of seamen from the ships in the harbor. 
The place was provisioned for eight months. 

On the 4th of December, the united forces 
of Arnold and Montgomery, amounting to 
about twelve hundred in all, advanced against 
Quebec, and the besieging army encamped in 
the snow before the walls. Its scanty artil- 
lery produced no effect upon the impregnable 
ramparts. Biting frost, the fire of the garri- 
son, pleurisy, and the small-pox did their fatal 
work. The only hope of success was by as- 
sault, which must be made before the close of 
the year, when the period of service of many 
of the men expired. 


O, THE LONG AND CRUEL WINTER! IOI 


On the last day of the year 1776, therefore, 
a double attack was made on the Lower Town, 
the object of which was to effect a junction of 
forces, and then to storm the Upper Town. 
At four o’clock in the morning, in a blinding 
snowstorm, Montgomery, with five hundred 
men, crept along the narrow pass between 
Cape Diamond and the river. The western 
approach to the town was defended by a block- 
house and a battery. As the forlorn hope 
made a dash for the barrier, a volley of grape 
swept through their ranks. Montgomery, 
with two of his officers and ten men, were 
slain. The deepening snow wrapped them in 
its icy shroud, while their comrades retreated 
in utter discomfiture. The spot where Mont- 
gomery fell was just opposite the landing- 
place of the Allan Steamship Line. It is 
marked by an inscription attached to the face 
of the cliff. 

On the other side of the town, Arnold, with 
six hundred men, attacked and carried the 
first barriers. The alarum-bells rang, the 
drums beat to arms, the garrison rallied to 
the defense. The assaulting party pressed on, 


102 


BARBARA HECK. 


and many entered the town through the em- 
brasures of a battery, and waged a stubborn 
fight in the narrow streets, amid the storm 
and darkness. With the dawn of morning 
they found themselves surrounded by an over- 
whelming force, and exposed to a withering 
fire from the houses. They therefore sur- 
rendered at discretion, to the number of four 
hundred men. Arnold continued during the 
winter to maintain an ineffective siege, his 
command daily wasting away with small-pox, 
cold, and hunger. Scanty re-enforcements of 
the besieging army continued to arrive, till it 
numbered about two thousand men. 

In April the American Congress ordered 
that a strong force, with an ample supply of 
materiel of war, should be raised for the con- 
quest of Canada, and Major-General Thomas, 
of Massachusetts, was dispatched to take com- 
mand of the army before Quebec. Thomas 
arrived on the ist of May, and found nearly 
half of the American force sick with small- 
pox, the magazines almost empty, and only six 
days’ provisions in camp. The French sym- 
pathizers with the Americans, moreover, had 


O , THE LONG AND CRUEL WINTER! 103 

become disaffected, and supplies were obtain- 
able only with great difficulty. General 
Thomas decided on an immediate retreat to 
Three Rivers. The next day British ships 
arrived in the harbor, and before he could 
move his invalid army, the garrison of Quebec 
issued from the gates, a thousand strong, and 
fell upon his camp. General Thomas, with 
his command, retreated, amid great hardships, 
to Sorel, where he soon died of small-poXj 
and was succeeded by General Sullivan. So 
ended the fifth and last siege of the rock-built 
fortress of Quebec. 


Chapter IX. 

AS MEN THAT DREAMED.’ 


OHN LAWRENCE had taken an early 



^ opportunity to- join General Carleton, at 
Quebec, as a volunteer for the defense of that 
last stronghold of British authority in Canada. 
During the long months of the winter and 
spring, his friends at Montreal had heard 
nothing of him, so great were the difficulties 
of communication. The Americans carefully 
intercepted every letter or message from the 
besieged garrison at Quebec. It was only with 
the greatest difficulty that the British general 
was able, by means of daring scouts, skillful 
in the adoption of every sort of disguise, to 
keep up any communication with Montreal. 
His most trusty messenger was a loyal Freuch- 
Canadian, who more than once that dreary 
winter, in the disguise of a peddler, with im- 
portant dispatches sewed inside of his fur-cap, 
found his way through the beleaguering army 


“AS MEN THAT DREAMED .” 105 

around Quebec, and through the snow-laden 
forests, to Montreal. 

Great was the joy of the English popula- 
tion of Montreal when they saw the last of 
the American troops cross the river. The old 
Red Cross flag was run up again on the flag- 
staff at the Government House with loyal 
cheers, and bonfires in the streets and an il- 
lumination of the houses at night testified 
the popular delight. A few days after, a de- 
tachment of British red-coats and militia 
marched into the town, with colors flying and 
drums beating a joyous roulade. Among the 
weather-beaten, travel-stained militiamen was 
our friend John Lawrence. As the little troop 
marched into the barrack-yard, hearty were 
the cheers and warm the greetings they re- 
ceived from their townsmen and kinsfolk. 
Paul Heck wrung his friend Lawrence’s hand, 
and the latter gayly raised his Glengarry bon- 
net toward the window where, waving their 
kerchiefs, stood Barbara Heck and Mary Em- 
bury. Handing his musket to Heck, he rushed 
eagerly up-stairs, unbuckling his knapsack as 
he went. Throwing the latter into a corner, 


106 BARBARA HECK. 

he warmly shook hands with Barbara, who 
opened the door, and then tenderly embraced 
her blushing companion, exclaiming: 

“Thank God, Molly dear, I see you safe 
once more!” 

“ Thank God,” she devoutly answered, “ that 
you are spared to come back alive! Every 
day, and almost every hour, I ’ve prayed for 
you. We heard of the terrible sickness, and 
I leared you would never return.” 

“ I felt sure in my heart that you would,” 
said brave-souled Barbara; “ but it took all my 
faith to keep up Molly’s courage.” 

“A sore winter we had of it,” said John, 
“and the enemy worse than we. From my 
heart 1 pitied them, even though they were 
doing their worst against us.” 

“We never heard word or token how it 
fared with ye. Sore and sad was my heart 
many *s the day for fear the fever, or the 
famine, or the fire of the enemy might de- 
stroy ye.” 

“How could man die better, Molly dear, 
than fighting for his king and country? The 
service was hard, and the fare was poor; the 


'AS MEN THAT DREAMED: 


107 


besiegers were more than the defenders, and 
we were put on short allowance of food; but 
we were holding the key of the continent for 
good King George, and every man of us would 
have died rather than give it up. A queer 
old town it is, with walls all around just as if 
it was one big castle. And the grand sunrise 
and sunset views from the Citadel Hill — I 
never saw the like. But I found in the old 
town what we could n’t find here — that is, a 
Methodist preacher.’’ 

“Did ye, now?” ejaculated Paul Heck. 
“And who was he, and where did he come 
from? And tell us all about the siege.” 

“His name was- James Tuffy, a commis- 
sary in the 44th Regiment, and a right good 
man he was. He was one of Mr. Wesley’s 
helpers in England; and he didn’t leave his 
religion behind, as so many do who cross the 
sea. He had preaching in his own quarters 
in the barracks. It was a strange sight. The 
garrison was so crowded that we had to have 
hammocks swung in the casemates, which 
were looped up by day to give room to work 
the big guns. And he would sit on a gun- 


io8 


BARBARA HECK. 


carriage, with his Bible on a gun-breach, and 
preach and pray; and more than once the 
drums beat to quarters while he was preach- 
ing, and we had to seize our arms and rush to 
the walls, while the gunners blazed away with 
the big guns. 

“I ’ll never forget the last day of the year, 
when we repulsed a double attack. It was a 
cold and stormy night. The snow fell fast, 
and the wind howled about the bastions, O so 
drearily! In the night, the sentries on the 
wall by St. John’s Gate saw some signaling 
by lanterns in the enemy’s trenches, and gave 
the alarm. The guard turned out, and a sharp 
fire was opened by a body of men concealed 
behind a snow-drift. A deserter had warned 
the general that an attack was to be made, 
and we were kept under arms all night. I 
was posted, along with a battery of small 
guns, at a block-house, at a place called the 
Pres-de-ville, just below the cliff ; and cold 
work it was, pacing up and down in the storm, 
and blowing our fingers to keep them from 
freezing. At last, amid the darkness, I thought 
I saw something moving on the road. I 


‘AS MEN THAT DREAMED ' 


109 


watched closely, and felt sure I was not mis- 
taken. I told Sergeant McQuarters, who had 
command of the battery, and we were all on 
the alert. 

“The enemy came nearer, halted, and one 
of them advanced to reconnoiter, and then 
went back. The snow muffled every sound, 
except our steady breathing, or the click of a 
flint-lock, and the howling of the wind. Pres- 
ently they dashed forward at the double-quick. 
The gunners stood with their lighted matches 
in their hands, and when the head of the col- 
umn came within range, they blazed away 
with grape and shrapnel. The column was 
crushed back and shattered like an egg-shell, 
and we could hear the cries and groans of the 
wounded amid the dark. 

“Just then we heard firing in the rear, and 
were called back to repulse an attack from 
the other side of the town. The enemy 
swarmed over the walls and through the em- 
brasures, and fought their way from house to 
house in the narrow street, amid a blinding 
snowstorm. They were taken in front and 

rear by the garrison, and penned in between 
8 


I IO 


BARBARA HECK . 


the high cliff and the river, and were caught 
as in a trap. When day dawned we found 
Montgomery and his slain companions half- 
buried in the drifts. The general lay on his 
back, far in advance, wrapped in his icy wind- 
ing-sheet. His sword-arm, frozen stiff, thrust 
through the snow, still grasped his naked 
sword.* 

“After this dreadful fight in storm and 
darkness, we suffered no more assaults all 
winter long ; but both sides endured great hard- 
ships. The enemy, in their snowy trenches 
and canvas tents, smitten with pleurisy and 
sinall-pox, died like sheep. It was dreadful. 
But they hung on like bulldogs, and never for 
an hour relaxed the strictness of the siege. 
We could n’t go outside of the gates for fuel, 

* Forty-two years later, the body of Montgomery was 
given up by the British to a kinsman, who had it re- 
moved to New York. From the windows of her cottage 
on the Hudson, his widow, then in extreme old age, be- 
held the vessel that bore his remains glide down the 
river past her doors. In the porch of the Church of St. 
Paul, in Broadway, amid the rush and roar of the cease- 
less tide of traffic, stands the monument which com- 
memorates the untimely and tragic fate of this brave and 
gallant gentleman. 


'AS MEN THAT DREAMED: 


III 


and had to break up the houses to bake our 
bread and cook our rations. 

“At last, one morning in spring — it was 
May-day, and I ’ll always keep it as a holi- 
day — the lookout on Citadel Hill cried out, 
‘A sail! a sail!’ We all crowded to the ram- 
parts and walls, and there, slowly rounding 
the headland of Point Levis, was the van of 
the British fleet, with the dear old Union Jack 
flying at the peak. How we cheered and 
hugged each other, and laughed and cried by 
turns, and the drums beat a joyous roll, and 
the bugles blew a blithe fanfare, and the big 
guns fired a double royal salute, although it 
used up nearly the last of our powder! 

“With the flood-tide the fleet came sailing 
up the broad river, with their white sails 
swelling in the wind, like a flock of snowy 
swans, and the sailors manned the yards, and 
red-coats lined the bulwarks, and the bands 
played ‘God Save the King’ and ‘Britannia 
Rules the Waves,’ and our men shouted and 
sang, and Commissary Tuffy exhorted and 
prayed, and the old Highlanders and their 




1 12 


BARBARA HECK. 


Cameronian sergeant all gathered in the king’s 
bastion and sang, between shouts and sobs, 
the psaltn : 

‘Had not the Lord been on our side — 

May Israel now say — 

Had not the Lord been on our side, 

When men rose us to slay, 

They had us swallowed quick, when as 
Their wrath ’gainst us did flame ; 

Waters had covered us — our soul 
Had sunk beneath the stream. 

Then had the waters, swelling high, 

Over our soul made way. 

Bless’d be the Lord, who to their teeth 
Us gave not for a prey! 

Our souls escaped as a bird 
Out of the fowler’s snare; 

The snare asunder broken is, 

And we escaped are.' 

“Then they sang: 

‘When Sion’s bondage God turned back, 

As men that dreamed were we; 

Then filled with laughter was our mouth, 

Our tongue with melody.’ 

“And the enemy in their trenches saw the 
ships and heard the guns, and they turned 
and fled, like the army of Sennacherib, leav- 
ing their tents and their stores behind, and 
even their sick in their beds. And we went 


“AS MEN THAT DREAMED J 


out and spoiled their camp, as the people of 
Samaria spoiled the camp of the Syrians, and 
we brought in their sick and wounded, and 
tended them as carefully as if they were 
our own.” 

Such was, in brief, the narrative, divested 
of its interruptions and amplifications, given 
by John Lawrence to his attentive auditory, 
of the terrible winter of the last siege of 
Quebec. 


Chapter X. 

WHITE- WINGED PEACE. 

T HE weary years of the war dragged their 
slow length along. The seasons came 
and went, bringing no surcease of the strange, 
unnatural strife between the mother and the 
daughter land. Meanwhile the American Col- 
onies had thrown off their allegiance to the 
mother country by the celebrated Declaration 
of Independence, which was solemnly adopted 
by the Continental Congress, July 4, 1776. 
The British had already been obliged to 
evacuate Boston. 

Notwithstanding the protests of Lord Chat- 
ham and Lord North against the war, the 
English king and his ministers persisted in 
their policy of coercion. The following spring, 
General Burgoyne, who had been appointed 
to the supreme military command, set out 
from Canada, with nine thousand men, to in- 
vade the State of New York by way of Lake 
Champlain, effect a junction with General 


WHITE-WINGED PEACE. 115 

Gage at Albany, and sever the American Con- 
federacy by holding the Hudson River. He 
captured Ticonderoga, and advanced to Fort 
Edward. The New England and New York 
militia swarmed around the invading army, 
cut off its supplies, and, familiar with the 
ground, attacked its detached forces with fatal 
success. Burgoyne was defeated at Stillwater, 
on the Hudson, and soon afterwards, being 
completely surrounded, surrendered, with six 
thousand men, to General Gates, at Saratoga. 
This surrender led to the recognition of Amer- 
ican independence by the French, and to their 
active assistance of the revolt by money, arms, 
ships, and volunteers. The occupation of 
Philadelphia by the British, and the defeat of 
the Americans at Brandywine and German- 
town, were, however, disheartening blows to 
the young Republic. 

The Revolutionary War continued, with 
varying fortune, to drag its weary length. 
Several European officers, of high rank and 
distinguished military ability, placed their 
swords at the disposal of the young Republic 
of the West, and rendered valuable service in 


Il6 BARBARA HECK . 

organizing, animating, and leading its armies. 
Among these were the Barons Steuben and 
DeKalb ; the brave Polish patriots, Kosciuszko 
and Pulaski; and, most illustrious of them all, 
the gallant Marquis de la Fayette. The genius 
and moral dignity of Washington sustained 
the courage of his countrymen under repeated 
disaster and defeat, and commanded the ad- 
miration and respect of even his enemies. 
The last great act of this stormy drama was 
the surrender of Lord Cornwallis, with seven 
thousand troops, at Yorktown, Virginia, Octo- 
ber 19, 1781. Lord Chatham, Lord North, 
and many of the leading minds of Great 
Britain, were averse to the prosecution of the 
war, and now public opinion compelled the 
king and ministry to recognize the independ- 
ence of the revolted Colonies; and the angel 
of peace at last waved her branch of olive 
over the weary continent. 

We return now to trace more minutely the 
fortunes of the principal characters in our 
little story. During the long years of the 
war they lived quietly in the town of Mont- 
real, whose growth was stimulated to fictitious 


WHITE-WINGED PEACE . 117 

prosperity by the military movements upon 
the adjacent frontier. The little group of 
loyalist exiles shared this prosperity. Paul 
Heck found constant employment — notwith- 
standing his honest scruples about fighting — 
in the construction of gun-carriages and other 
military carpentry, and John Lawrence as 
house-joiner. The latter, soon after his re- 
turn from Quebec, built a small, neat house 
for himself in the suburbs. 

Hither, the following spring, he brought as 
his bride the blooming young widow, Mary 
Embury. It was a very quiet wedding. They 
were married by the military chaplain, in the 
little English church which had been erected 
for the use of the growing English popula- 
tion. Theirs being the first marriage cele- 
brated in the church, they received from the 
Church wardens the present of as handsome 
a Bible and Prayer-book as the store of the 
principal mercer and draper of the town, who 
was also the only bookseller, contained. 

After the marriage ceremony they received 
a hearty a infare ” to their own house, under 
the motherly management of Barbara Heck. 


Il8 BARBARA HECK . 

Nor was this little group of Methodists with- 
out the chastening effects of sorrow. Two 
children, the daughters of Paul and Barbara 
Heck — sweet girls, about twelve and eight 
years old — within a short period of each other, 
died. The parent’s heart was stricken sore; 
but smiling through her tears, Barbara con- 
soled her husband with the holy words: “The 
Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; 
blessed be the name of the Lord.” 

Such were the difficulties and obstructions 
of travel during the war that none of their 
old loyalist neighbors in the province of New 
York were able to carry out their cherished 
purpose of escaping to the great northern prov- 
ince which still remained loyal to the king. 
At the close of the war, however, a number 
of them reached Montreal, and, after a tem- 
porary sojourn there, sought new homes in 
what was then the virgin wilderness of Upper 
Canada, and was recently erected into a prov- 
ince. The Hecks and Lawrences, desirous of 
returning to the simple agricultural life in 
which they had been bred, resolved to join 
them. The sturdy boys of Paul and Barbara 


WHITE-WINGED PEACE . 119 

Heck were growing up almost to man’s es- 
tate; indeed, the oldest was over twenty-one. 
The little company of Methodist pioneers, 
therefore, again set their faces to the wil- 
derness. 

“We go forth, like Abraham, not knowing 
whither we go,” said Barbara Heck. But 
with the prescient instinct of a mother in 
Israel, she added: “But I have faith to be- 
lieve that this is my last removal, and that 
God will give • us a home, and to our seed 
after us. A many changes have I seen. I 
seek now a quiet resting-place, and a grave 
among my children and my children’s 
children.” 

Prophetic words ! She now sleeps her last 
sleep amid her kinsfolk after the flesh; and 
her spiritual kinsfolk — the great Methodist 
community of whom she was the mother and 
pioneer in this new province — far and wide, 
have filled the land. 

At Lachine, above the rapids in the river, 
the little company embarked their household 
gear in a brigade of stout bateaux. Along 
the river’s bank the boys drove the cattle that 


120 


BARBARA HECK. 


were to stock the future farms. The oxen 
were employed, also, in dragging the bateaux 
at the Cedar and Gallops Rapids. Night after 
night they drew up their boats and pitched 
their tents in the shadows of the primeval 
forest. 

At length, after a week’s strenuous toil, 
these pioneers of civilization reached the 
newly-surveyed township of Augusta, in 
which were the allotted lands for which they 
held the patents of the Crown. They lay on 
the broad upland slope of the St. Lawrence, 
in full view of the rushing river, near the spot 
where the pretty village of Maitland now 
stands. They found, with little difficulty, the 
blazed trees, with the surveyor’s marks, by 
which they recognized their several allot- 
ments. The tents were pitched beneath the 
forest shade, the boats unladed, the fires 
kindled, and in the long twilight — it was the 
early spring — they ate their bread in their 
new home, if home it could be called, while 
not yet a tree was felled, with gladness and 
singleness of heart; and, like Jacob at Bethel, 
erected an altar, and worshiped the God of 


WHITE-WINGED PEACE. 


21 


their fathers in that lofty-vaulted and solemn- 
aisled cathedral of the forest. 

Day after day the keen-edged axes ring 
through the woods. The immemorial mon- 
archs of the forest are felled to the earth, and 
soon, shorn of their branches, lie cut in log- 
lengths on the sward. Strong arms and brave 
hearts build the first rude log-houses. The 
children gather moss to stuff the chinks. The 
rough “stick chimney” is constructed; but 
most of the cooking is still done out of doors 
by the women, beneath the shade of broad- 
armed maples. The straining oxen, with 
much shouting and “haw-gee ”-ing of their 
drivers, drag the huge logs into heaps, and 
all hands, including women and children, help 
to gather the brush and branches of the felled 
trees. These, soon drying in the sun, help to 
kindle the log-heaps, which blaze and smolder 
day after day, like the funeral pyre of some 
sylvan Sardanapalus, till only a bed of ashes 
tells of the cremation of these old forest kings. 
The rich alluvial soil is rudely scratched with 
a harrow, and the seed wheat and corn and 
potatoes are committed to its care, and soon 


122 


BARBARA HECK. 


the late stern and frowning wilderness laughs 
with the waving harvest. 

The dim forest aisles are full of sounds of 
mystery and delight. The noisy finches call 
out unceasingly: “Sow the wheat! sow the 
wheat!” The chattering blue-jay, who, clad 
in regalest purple, sows not, neither does he 
reap, laughs derisively as the farmers toil. 
The scarlet-crested woodpecker, like some 
proud cardinal, haughtily raps upon the hol- 
low beech. In the pensive twilight the plaint- 
ive cry of the whip-poor-will is heard; and at 
the solemn midnight, from the top of the 
blasted pine, shrieks the ghostly whoop of the 
great horned-owl, as if demanding who dare 
molest his ancient solitary reign. The wild 
flowers are to the children a perpetual de- 
light — the snowy trilliums; the sweet wood 
violet; the purple iris; the waxen and fra- 
grant pond-lily, with its targe-like floating 
leaf ; and, like Moses’ bush, ever burning, ever 
unconsumed, the flame-like brilliance of the 
cardinal flower. 

Before winter, the transformation of the 
scene was wonderful. A cluster of houses 


WHITE-WINGED PEACE . 


123 


formed a nucleus of civilization in the wilder- 
ness. The cattle were comfortably housed in 
a combined stable and barn, one deep bay of 
which was filled with the golden sheaves of 
ripened grain. While the wind howled loud 
without, the regular thud, thud, of the falling 
flail made sweet music to the farmer’s ear. 
The wind-winnowed grain was either pounded 
with a wooden pestle in a hollowed tree-stump, 
or ground in hand-mills by those fortunate 
enough to possess them. Not unfrequently 
would be heard, in the long, drear nights of 
winter, when the trees snapped with frost and 
the ice on the river rent with an explosion 
like cannon, the melancholy, long-drawn howl 
of the pack of wolves, and more than once 
the sheep-pen was invaded, and their fleecy 
victim was devoured to the very bones. Amid 
such privations and hardships as these did the 
pilgrim fathers of the United States and Can- 
ada lay the foundations of the neighboring 
Com mon wealths. 

Amid their secular labors, the pioneers did 
not forget nor neglect their spiritual hus- 
bandry. True to their providential mission, 


124 


BARBARA HECK. 


they became the founders and pioneers of 
Methodism in Upper Canada, as they had been 
in the United States. In the house of John 
and Mary Lawrence, the widow of Philip Em- 
bury, a class-meeting was forthwith organized, 
of which Samuel Embury, a promising young 
man, walking in the footsteps of his sainted 
father, was the first leader. Among its first 
members were Paul and Barbara Heck; and 
the names of their three sons, recorded on its 
roll, perpetuate the godly traditions of their 
house, which, like the house of Rechab, has 
never failed to have a man “to stand before 
the Lord.” “They thus anticipated,” re- 
marks Dr. Stevens, “and in part prepared the 
way for the Methodist itinerancy in Canada, 
as they had in the United States; for William 
Losee, the first regular Methodist preacher in 
Canada, did not enter the province till 1790. 
The germ of Canadian Methodism was planted 
by these memorable families five or six years 
before Losee’s arrival.”* 


Centenary volume, p. 179. 


Chapter XI. 

QUAKER AND CAVALIER. 


SOMEWHAT wider range of characters 



now comes upon the scene of our little 
story. The second year after the settlement 
of the Palatine Methodists on the banks of 
the St. Lawrence, the little community 
received a re-enforcement of its numbers. 
Towards the close of a sunny day in May 
the snowy sails of two large bateaux were 
seen rounding the headland that shut off the 
view of the lower reaches of the river. The 
bateaux made for the shore, and almost the 
whole population of the little hamlet went 
down to the landing to give the new-comers 
a welcome ; for this was the most notable 
event which had happened since their own 
arrival. 

In the bow of the foremost boat stood a 
venerable-looking man, with a snowy beard 
and long, iron-gray hair resting on his shoul- 
ders. He wore a low-crowned, broad-brimmed 


y 


126 


BARBARA HECK . 


hat, and a butternut-colored coat with a 
straight collar and cutaway skirt. Rowing 
the two boats were a number of younger men; 
but they all wore the same antiquated cos- 
tume, and were marked by the same gravity 
of expression. The women, of whom there 
were five or six of different ages, wore com- 
fortable brown-stuff gowns and drab-colored, 
deep “poke-bonnets,” but quite innocent of 
bow or ribbon, save that by which they were 
tied. Even the children nestling in the boats 
wore a garb remarkably like that of their 
elders, and had a strangely old-fashioned 
look. 

“Peace be to this place and to all who 
dwell here,” gravely said the old man, as the 
bateaux grated on the shingle. 

“We bid you welcome in the name of the 
Eord,” replied Paul Heck, who was the rec- 
ognized head of the little community, at the 
same time extending his hand in greeting. 
The younger men took hold of the bateaux, 
and dragged them up on the beach, and as- 
sisted the voyagers to disembark. 

“We have been moved to seek homes here 


QUAKER AND CAVALIER. 1 27 

in this province,” spoke the old man, “and 
to cast in our lot with the faithful subjects of 
King George.” 

“Fain and glad we are to see you,” said 
Paul; “a goodly heritage has the king granted 
us in this fertile land — a land which, like 
Canaan of old, may be said to flow with milk 
and honey.” 

“We desire no goodlier land than the one 
we left on the banks of the Schuylkill, where 
we and our fathers sojourned since the days 
of William Penn. But we do desire to dwell 
in a land of peace, where we shall never hear 
again the dreadful bruits of war.” 

“We are of the same mind in that,” re- 
plied Paul. “Come and bide this night in 
my house with your family. To-morrow we 
will find your allotment, which must be higher 
up the river.” 

“Thanks, good friend, for thy hospitality. 
We gladly accept it. This is Hannah White- 
side, my wife,” he said, introducing a silver- 
haired old lady with sweet, benignant expres- 
sion of countenance; “and these,” he added, 
with a sweep of his arm to the younger groups, 


128 


BARBARA HECK. 


“are my sons and my sons’ wives, and their 
little ones, and my daughters. The Lord hath 
dealt bountifully with me, as with his servant 
Jacob. It was borne in upon me to seek a 
home in this northern land; and if the Lord 
prosper us, our kinsfolk in Pennsylvania will 
shortly follow us.” 

“You belong, I see,” said Paul as they 
walked to the house, “to the people called 
Quakers. For them I have a great regard, 
for their peace principles are like my own.” 

“The people of the world call us 
Quakers,” replied Jonas Whiteside — for that 
was his name — “at first in derision and scorn. 
But we resent not the word, although we 
prefer to be called Friends.” 

“And very good friends we will be, I 
hope,” said Paul. “I will use the name that 
you prefer.” 

“Nay, thee meant no harm, and we desire 
to be friends with all,” replied the patriarch. 
“Peace be upon this house and household,” 
he added, as he was ushered into the large 
living room of the Heck family. 

“We wish you peace in the name of the 


QUAKER AND CAVALIER. 


129 


Ford,” said Barbara Heck, giving them cor- 
dial welcome, and bustling about to provide 
for their entertainment. 

“Dear heart, you must be tired with your 
long journey,” she said to the silver-haired 
matron, as she relieved her of her bonnet 
and shawl. 

“It more than makes amends to get such 
kindly greeting where we expected to see 
naught but red deer and red men,” was the 
soft-voiced answer. “I like thee much. 
What is thy name?” 

“Barbara Heck, and my goodman’s name 
is Paul Heck.” 

“We who are of the Friends’ persuasion 
use not the world’s titles. Be not offended if 
I call thy husband Friend Paul, and thyself 
Barbara; and I prithee call me Hannah. It 
will seem more homelike in this far-off 
place.” 

The two women soon became fast friends. 
They had much in common — the same un- 
worldly, spiritual nature; the same habitual 
communion with the Unseen; the same moral 
sensitiveness to the illumining of the “inner 


130 


BARBARA HECK. 


light.” But there was a greater mental vigor 
in Barbara Heck; and pleasant it was to see 
Hannah Whiteside, with her smooth and pla- 
cid brow unwrinkled by a single line or mark 
of care, listening to the words of shrewd 
practical wisdom of Barbara Heck, amid 
whose once raven hair the silver threads of 
age had now begun to appear. 

Lodging was found for the younger women 
in the capacious attic, while the men were 
gladly content with the dry, clean beds of 
straw in the barn. 

The “Quaker Settlement,” as it came to be 
called, was only a couple of miles further up 
the river, and their coming imparted a com- 
fortable sense of good neighborhood, which 
took away much of the sense of isolation 
which during the first year had been, at times, 
oppressively felt by the Methodist pioneers. 

Soon another company of settlers arrived, 
whose presence added still greater variety 
and color to the social life of the little forest 
community. These were several Virginia 
families of wealth and position, who, for serv- 
ices to the crown during the troublous times 


QUAKER AND CAVALIER . 


131 

of the war, had received liberal land-grants 
in upper Canada. With them they brought 
several of their domestic slaves, whose pres- 
ence literally added “ more color ” to the so- 
cial life, and contributed not a little to the 
social amusement of the young people of the 
settlement. Slavery had not then become in 
America the system of cruel oppression which 
it was even then in the West Indies, and 
which it afterwards became in the cotton and 
sugar States of the Union. These light- 
hearted, careless creatures had been the farm 
and house servants of easy-going masters, who 
would have shrunk from the thought of per- 
sonal unkindness and oppression — beyond the 
great and grave oppression of holding an im- 
mortal being in bondage, like a beast of bur- 
den or a mere chattel. But of that they 
thought not. No one thought. Even good 
and philanthropic men like George Whitefield 
deemed it no harm to own slaves; but, of 
course, they felt it a duty to use them kindly. 

But the number of slaves in Canada was 
few, and public opinion secured their good 
treatment. In fact, slavery can not flourish 


132 


BARBARA HECK. 


in a northern climate, where thrift and care- 
ful industry are essential prerequisites to 
prosperity. These can never be attained by 
enforced and unpaid labor. It is only in 
southern climates, where the prolific soil 
yields her increase in response to careless 
tillage, and where shelter and clothing are 
almost superfluous, that, from the thriftless 
toil of purchased thews and sinews, can be 
wrung a thriftless compensation. It is the 
blessing, not the bane, of a northern land that 
only by the strenuous toil of unbought mus- 
cles can the earth be subdued and made the 
free home of free men. 

The leading member of this company of 
Virginia loyalists was Colonel Isaac Pember- 
ton, a man of large and portly person, who to 
the politeness of a perfect gentleman added 
great dignity of bearing. He had served on 
the staff of Lord Cornwallis in the Royalist 
army, on which account he was always spoken 
of by the honorary title of “Colonel” Pember- 
ton. His sons had also served as volunteers 
in the same army, but only in the untitled ca- 
pacity of “full privates.” By the surrender of 


QUAKER AND CAVALIER. 1 33 

Cornwallis at Yorktown, the Pembertons be- 
came prisoners of war, but after having been re- 
leased on parole they were at length exchanged 
for some leading insurgents who were confined 
on board the hulks at Halifax. The vast 
Pemberton estate on the Upper Potomac, and 
all the broad demesne, yielding a rich annual 
revenue in tobacco and grain, with the stately 
country-house in which the gallant colonel had 
been wont to dispense an open-handed Vir- 
ginian hospitality, were, however, confiscated. 
The colonel brought to Canada a considerable 
amount of ready money in solid English 
guineas, together with the valuable jewels 
of his wife and daughters, including a neck- 
lace of considerable value, though of rather 
tasteless design, which had been a present 
from good Queen Anne to his own mother — 
who had been one of the queen’s maids of 
honor— on her wedding day. 

His large troop of slaves were of course 
confiscated with his estate. But through 
some oversight or informality, two old “body- 
servants,” who had acted respectively as valet 
and butler, together with their wives and 


34 


BARBARA HECK. 


brood of “pickaninnies,” were permitted to 
share the fallen fortunes of their master. 
This the faithful creatures gladly did, for 
they felt that upon their fidelity depended 
very largely the dignity and honor of the 
house. These sable satellites rejoiced in the 
somewhat pompous names, bestowed by the 
classic taste of the colonel’s father — who had 
been an Oxford graduate — of Julius Caesar 
and Cneius Potnpey; but they were for most 
part more briefly designated as “You Jule,” 
or “You Pomp” — or Uncle Pomp or Uncle 
Jule, as their master preferred to call them. 
And very patriarchal those faithful old serv- 
ants looked, their heads as white as the 
bursting bolls of the cotton-plant, or as the 
large globes which surmounted the gate-posts 
of the hospitable mansion, when covered with 
a cap of fleecy snow. 

Much more important members of the 
household, however, and equally faithful in 
sharing its fallen fortunes, were the wives of 
these classic magnates — “Mammy Dinah,” 
the ancient nurse of a generation of young 
Pembertons; and Aunt Chloe, the oracle and 


QUAKER AND CAVALIER . 


135 


priestess of the kitchen, who had presided at 
the mysteries of the cuisine in the palmy days 
of routs and parties and lavish hospitality. 
Their names were popular corruptions of the 
whimsical cognomens bestowed by their 
former master, Diana and Cleopatra. 

“ Hab my liberty, eh?” said Mammy 
Dinah when told by Colonel Pemberton that 
she and her husband were free to go where 
they pleased. “Not if I knows it. I hain’t 
nussed Mas’r George and Mas’r Ned and the 
young leddies when they wuz leetle picka- 
ninnies, through mumps and measles, to lose 
sight on ’em now. No, Mas’r, ye don’t get 
red o’ me that a-way, no how!” 

u Laws, honey !” chimed in Aunt Chloe, 
“what ’ud Missis ever do widout me, I’d like 
ter know? Could n’t even make a corn-dodger 
or slapjack widout ole Chloe. Ye can’t do 
widout me, no how. De ting’s onpossible! 

“No, indeed, Mammy and Aunty,” said 
Mrs. Pemberton, a delicate little woman, with 
a low, soft voice, “ I do n’t know what we ’d 
do without either of you. I ’in so glad you 
don’t want to leave us. But we’ve lost all 


136 


BARBARA HECK . 


our property, you know, and we will have to 
go away off to Canada, to the wild backwoods, 
where nobody ever lived before.” 

“All de more need for ole Mammy and 
Chloe to go wid ye, and nuss ye, and care for 
ye and mas’r,” said the faithful Dinah. “We 
can die for ye, honey, but we can’t leave ye.” 

So the whole household, with these faith- 
ful servants, took passage in a schooner down 
the Potomac to Hampton Roads, where they 
were transferred to a British ship, which had 
been sent to convey the Virginia loyalists to 
the port of Halifax, in the province of Nova 
Scotia. It was a small and crowded vessel. 
There were many refugees on board, and the 
autumnal equinox had brought with it fierce 
Atlantic gales. Three weeks they beat about 
that stern, inhospitable coast — those delicately- 
nurtured women suffering all the discomforts 
and privations of seasickness, and of the 
crowded cabins and short allowance of water 
and provisions, before their almost ship- 
wrecked vessel, with tattered canvas, glided, 
like a storin-tossed bird with weary wing, into 
the noble harbor of refuge, where the fair city 


QUAKER AND CAVALIER. 137 

of Halifax now extends her spacious streets 
and squares. 

It was on the verge of winter. Many of the 
refugees were suffering from lack of clothing, 
and many of them were without money to 
procure either food or shelter. Among them 
were men and women of gentle birth and 
delicate nurture, ex-judges of His Majesty’s 
courts, ex-officers of His Majesty’s army, 
clergymen of Oxford training, planters, and 
country gentlemen, all reduced from compe- 
tence to poverty on account of their fidelity 
to their conscience and their king. But the 
best provision that it was possible to make 
for their comfort was made. The king’s 
stores were thrown open, and ample supplies 
of food, blankets, and tents were furnished, 
and accommodation was provided as far as pos- 
sible for the refugees in the barracks of the 
troops and in private houses. 

Some took up land in Nova Scotia, others — 
among them Colonel Pemberton and his 
family — preferred to make the journey to the 
more distant wilds of Canada. These had to 
remain in camp or barrack through the long 


138 


BARBARA HECK. 


and dreary months of a winter of unusual 
severity. In the spring, when the ice was 
thought to be out of the Gulf and River St. 
Lawrence, a transport was sent to convey 
them to Quebec and Montreal. But much de- 
lay and discomfort were experienced before the 
transport cast anchor beneath the fortress- 
crowned height of Quebec. But the troubles 
of our refugees were now almost at an end. 
As if an omen and augury of their future 
prosperity, the mouth of May opened warm 
and sunny. A sudden transfiguration of the 
face of nature took place. A green flush 
overspread the landscape. The air was filled 
with the pollen and catkins of the larch and 
willows. When our travelers landed on the 
river bank at Montreal, they found the blue- 
eyed violets blooming under the very shadow 
of the “ice-shove,” where the frozen surface 
of the river had been piled up upon the shore ; 
and before the snowdrifts had melted from 
the hollows a whiter drift of apple-blossoms 
had covered as with a bridal veil the orchard 
trees. 

The welcome of the Virginia loyalists at 


QUAKER AND CAVALIER. 


139 


the Heck Settlement, as it had begun to be 
called, was no less cordial than had been that 
of the more peaceful and less aristocratic 
Quakers of the previous year. They had all 
suffered for a common cause; and community 
of suffering is the strongest bond of sympathy 
and friendship. 


Chapter XII. 

A EIFE DRAMA. 

T HE mutual helpfulness that prevailed 
among the early settlers threw into inti- 
mate contact and placed under mutual obliga- 
tion the new-comers, both Quaker and Cavalier, 
and the Heck family. On the narrow stage 
of this backwoods scene was played by these 
humble actors the grand drama of human life, 
nor were there wanting any of the elements 
which give it dignity and sublimity. There 
were the deep, immortal yearnings of the soul 
for a fairer and loftier ideal than this world 
offers, the hungry cravings of the heart for 
affection and sympathy, the aspiration of the 
spirit for a higher and holier life. Beneath 
the prosaic surface of rural toil there were, for 
the young hearts awaking to self-conscious- 
ness amid their forest surroundings, a rich 
mine of poetry and romance. 

Nature, in her varied moods and with her 

myriad voices, spoke her secrets to their souls. 
140 


A LIFE DRAMA . 


I 4 I 

The gladsome coining of the spring kindled 
joyous pulses in their frames. The rich lux- 
uriance of the suinmertide was a constant 
psalm of praise. The sad suggestions of the 
autumn, with its wailing winds and weeping 
skies and falling leaves, lent a pensiveness to 
their spirits. And when the deep snows of 
winter clothed the world “with ermine too 
dear for an earl,” their hearty out-of-door life 
and cheerful home joys bade defiance to the 
icy reign of the frost-king. To gentler na- 
tures, the deep shadows of the lonely forest 
aisles, the quiet beauty of the forest flowers, 
the solemn sunsets on the shining river, and 
the mysterious whisperings of the night-winds 
among the needles of the pine, so like the 
murmuring of the distant sea, were a perpetual 
and deep delight. 

The fair Katharine Heck, the youngest 
child of Paul and Barbara, was now a bloom- 
ing maiden in her later teens, who inherited 
her mother’s early beauty and mental acute- 
ness, and her father’s placid and contempla- 
tive disposition. The loveliness of character 

and person of the young girl made a profound 
10 


142 


BARBARA HECK . 


impression on the susceptible southern tern- 
perament of Reginald Pemberton, a younger 
son of the gallant colonel. The alert mind of 
Barbara Heck observed, with a mother’s so- 
licitude, the unconscious attachment spring- 
ing up between these young hearts, and read 
their secret before the principals were aware 
of it themselves. While Reginald was a 
youth of noble spirit and manly, generous 
character, still he was ignorant of the great 
regenerating change which the pious Method- 
ist mother regarded as the prime essential — 
the “one thing needful” — to secure his own 
and her daughter’s happiness. Moreover, he 
belonged to a proud and aristocratic family, 
who were, in their social standing and their 
ideas, emphatically “people of the world;” 
and how could those who felt themselves the 
“heirs of the kingdom” smile on such a 
worldly alliance? Moreover, she was as proud 
in her way as any Pemberton living, and would 
not brook that union with a child of hers 
should be considered a misalliance by the 
bluest blood in the realm. 

Much troubled with these thoughts, the de- 


A LIFE DRAMA . 


143 


vout Barbara thus communed one day with 
goodman Paul: 

“ Have you not observed, Paul, that young 
Pemberton is vastly more attentive to Kath- 
arine than is good for either of them?” 

“No, I can’t say that I have,” replied Paul, 
with a look of surprised inquiry. “ Have 
you ?” 

“To be sure I have,” rejoined the anxious 
matron. “He is mooning around here half 
the time.” 

“Is he? How do you know he does not 
come to see the boys?” 

“Come to see the boys, indeed! And is it 
to the boys he brings the bouquets of wild 
flowers and baskets of butternuts? And was 
it for the boys he tamed the raccoon that he 
gave to Kate?” 

“Well, where’s the harm? Kate is only a 
child yet.” 

“Only a child? She is near nineteen.” 

“Is she? Dear me, so she is. It seems 
only a little while since she was a baby.” 

“The boy is so shy that he scarcely ever 
speaks to her; but he is as content to sit 


144 


BARBARA HECK. 


dumb in her presence as a cat is to bask in 
the sun.” 

“Humph! I know somebody who used to 
be quite content to sit dumb in yours. Well, 
mother, what do you want me to do about it?” 

“Do about it? That’s what I don’t know. 
Can’t you tell him not to come so often, or 
something?” 

“Fie, Barbara! Do you think I would be 
guilty of such a breach of hospitality? Leave 
the young folks alone. You will only be put- 
ting nonsense into their heads if you do any- 
thing at all. Katie is a good girl. You can 
trust her innocent heart. She loves her old 
father yet better than any other man, I ’se 
warrant.” 

So the matter dropped for the time, al- 
though Barbara mentally resolved to warn 
Katharine not to let her affections become en- 
tangled. 

That evening, in the golden glow of sun- 
set, Katharine Heck was spinning in the ample 
“living-room” of the large and rambling 
house. The amber-colored light flashed back 
from the well-scoured tins and burnished brass 


A LIFE DRAMA, 


145 


kettles and candlesticks on the dresser, and 
tinged with bronze her glossy hair. And a 
very pretty picture she made, clad in her sim- 
ple calico gown, as she walked gracefully back 
and forth from her wheel, now giving it a 
swift whirl, and then stepping back as she 
dexterously drew out the yarn from the fleecy 
rolls of wool. Evidently young Pemberton 
was of the same opinion, as he stood for a 
moment at the open door, holding in his hand 
a string of beautiful speckled trout, fresh from 
a sparkling stream near by. 

“Good-evening, Mistress Kate!” he said, 
after a pause. “I ’ve brought a few fish, for 
your mother, that I have just caught in Brae- 
side Burn.” 

“ O, thanks ! How pretty they are ! Mother 
will be so much obliged,” said the maiden, 
taking the string of fish. 

“I ’m not so sure of that,” said the young 
man. “I ’m sometimes afraid I ’ve offended 
your m ther. I do n’t know how, unless she 
thinks I am idle, because I ’in so fond of my 
rod and gun. I learned that in old Virginia, 
and can’t easily unlearn it.” 


146 


BARBARA HECK. 


“She won’t object to your sport to-day, at 
any rate,” said Kate, with a laugh; “for 
mother can fry trout better than any one in 
the world. You must stay, and have some;” 
and she took the fish into the summer kitchen. 

“And now,” she said, as she came back, 
“if you have been idle, you must make 
amends by being useful. I have been want- 
ing some one to hold my yarn while I 
wind it.” 

“I am so awkward, I ’in afraid I ’ll tangle 
it; but I ’ll do my best,” said the blushing 
boy, as he stretched out his hands to receive 
the skein. 

True to his fears, he soon did tangle it, 
letting several threads off at once; and as 
Kate deftly disentangled the skein, he thought 
her the loveliest being that poet’s fancy ever 
conceived. 

At this juncture the matronly Barbara en- 
tered the room to thank their visitor for his 
present. The self-conscious youth fancied — 
or was it fancy? — that he observed a severer 
expression than usual in her eye, though her 
words of thanks were exceedingly polite. 


A LIFE DRAMA . 


147 


“ I am playing the part of Hercules with 
Omphale,” said the stalwart youth, who had 
acquired a tincture of classic lore at the 
grammar-school at Annapolis, in Virginia; 
“but I can succeed better at my own work 
of holding the plow or wielding my fish- 
ing-rod.” 

“The former ot these employments is the 
more profitable in a new country like this,” 
said Barbara, with emphasis; “although the 
trout are not to be despised,” she continued, 
relaxing into a smile, “and you must stay and 
have some.” 

About the homely farm and household 
duties of the youth and maid, love wove its 
sweet romance; and the older hearts, remem- 
bering the fond emotions of their youth, could 
not chill with censorious words their budding 
and innocent affection. 

A favorite amusement of the young people, 
in the long summer twilights, when the after- 
glow of sunset was reflected from the shining 
reaches of the river, like a sea of glass min- 
gled with fire, and when the great white har- 
vest-moon climbed, like a wan specter, up the 


148 


BARBARA HECK . 


eastern sky, was to sail or row upon the bosom 
of the broad St. Lawrence; and often they 
would beguile the delicious hours with such 
song and music as their somewhat primitive 
tastes had acquired. On such occasions, young 
Hannah and Reuben Whiteside often joined 
the party, finding in its innocent mirth a re- 
lief from the somewhat pallid quietism of 
their home-life. 

One lovely August evening, Paul and Bar- 
bara Heck were making a friendly call on the 
hospitable Whiteside family at the Quaker 
Settlement. As they sat in the soft and silver 
moonlight, on the broad “stoop” of the low- 
walled, broad-eaved log-house, the sound of 
sweet strains of music, wafted over the water, 
stole upon their ears. In the hush of twi- 
light, when even the whip-poor-will’s plaint- 
ive cry was at intervals distinctly heard, 
floated soft and clear, in the rich tenor voice 
of Reginald Pemberton, the notes of the sweet 
Scottish song: 

“Maxwellton’s braes are bonnie, 

Where early fa’s the dew ; 

For ’twas there that Annie Laurie 
Gave me her promise true — 


A LIFE DRAMA. 


149 


Gave me her promise true, 

And ne’er forget will I; 

But for bonnie Annie Laurie 
I ’ll la} T me down and die.” 

More charmed than she liked to confess, 
Barbara Heck, in whose soul was a rich though 
seldom-touched vein of poetry, listened to the 
simple strain. 

“It’s a worldly song,” she said, at length; 
“but the music is very sweet. Pity that such 
gifts were not employed in singing the praise 
of their Giver.” 

“After a pause, the sweet and pure con- 
tralto voice of Katharine Heck trilled forth 
the words of her favorite hymn: 

“All hail the power of Jesus’ name! 

Let angels prostrate fall; 

Bring forth the royal diadem, 

And crown him Lord of all.” 

Then every voice joined in the triumphant 
chorus, which came swelling in a paean of 
praise over the waves : 

“Bring forth the royal diadem, 

And crown him Lord of all.” 

The tears stood in Hannah Whiteside’s 
soft brown eyes as she said, with a sigh, in 


BARBARA HECK. 


150 

which the long repression of her emotional 
nature found vent: 

“Why should we not have such holy hymns 
in our worship, Jonas?” 

“Nay, dear heart, it needs not,” answered 
the patriarch. “When we listen to the Spirit’s 
inner voice, it is meet that we commune with 
our own hearts and be still.” 

“But still, the deepest feelings of our souls, 
their adoration and their love, crave for ex- 
pression in sacred song; and God’s servants 
of old time praised him in his holy temple 
with psaltery and harp.” 

“ But that was in the carnal dispensation of 
form and ceremony. We who live in the later 
dispensation of the Spirit, must serve God in 
spirit and in truth, making melody in our 
hearts unto the Lord.” 

“But you do n’t think the singing of 
hymns wrong, do you?” asked Paul Heck. 

“We judge no man,” replied the God-fear- 
ing Quaker. “To his own Master he standeth 
or falleth. We must follow the guidance of 
the Inner Light.” 

“ Perhaps we deem as erringly,” said Bar- 


A LIFE DRAMA . 


151 

bara, as she walked home through the moon- 
light with her husband, “in condemning as 
worldly such songs as so deeply touch our 
deeper and nobler nature, as Friend White- 
side does in condemning our psalms and 
hymns.” 


Chapter XIII. 

THE PIONEER PREACHER. 

HE little forest community was soon to be 



I stirred by a deep religious impulse, the 
results of which only the great day shall de- 
clare. At the close of a sultry day in the 
midsummer of 1790, there rode into the Heck 
Settlement a man of somewhat notable ap- 
pearance. He was about eight-and-twenty 
years of age, of tall and well-knit figure, save 
that one arm seemed quite shriveled or par- 
alyzed. Nevertheless, he was a fearless horse- 
man, riding at a gallop through the root-en- 
tangled forest paths, and boldly leaping his 
horse across the pools made by the recent 
rains. He wore a coarse felt hat, homespun, 
snuff-colored coat — to which a somewhat cler- 
ical air was given by a straight collar and cut- 
away skirts — and leathern leggings. Behind 
him were the inevitable saddle-bags and his 
coarse frieze coat. Riding up to the house of 
Paul Heck, without dismounting, he knocked 



THE ITINERANT’S VISIT. 
























































































THE PIONEER PREACHER. 


153 


with his riding-whip on one of the posts of 
the “stoop.” 

“ I am a Methodist preacher,” he said. “ Can 
I preach here to-morrow?” For it was Satur- 
day evening. 

“Fain and glad will we be to have you,” 
said Paul Heck, as he came forward. 

“Can I have lodging and provender for 
myself and horse?” continued the preacher, 

“Ay, and welcome. Get you down,” said 
Paul, extending his hand in friendly greet- 
ing. 

“Tell me first, will you warn the neigh- 
bors of the preaching? If not, I will do so 
myself before I dismount, although I have had 
a long ride to-day.” 

“Ay, will we, near and far. Here, Barbara, 
is a Methodist preacher,” Paul called to his 
good wife within the house. 

“ We wish you good luck in the name of 
the Lord!” said that hospitable matron, using 
the language of the Prayer-book, with which 
she had long been familiar. “Thank God, I 
live to see the day!” she went on. “We are 
Methodists, too, and we have pined and hun- 


i54 


BARBARA HECK . 


gered for the preaching of the Word as the 
hungry long for food.” 

“Bless the Lord!” said the preacher; “the 
lines have fallen to me in pleasant places. I 
knew not that there was a Methodist in Can- 
ada, and here, the very day I enter the country, 
I find some.” 

“Ay, and you’ll find a-many more, scat- 
tered up and down, and fain and glad they ’ll 
be to see you,” said Paul, using his customary 
formula of welcome. 

While the new preacher, whose name they 
learned was William Losee, the pioneer of the 
goodly band of Methodist itinerants who soon 
ranged the country, was doing ample justice 
to the generous meal set before him — for he 
had ridden forty miles that day — Jabez Heck, 
Paul’s son, proceeded to “warn” the neigh- 
bors, near and far, of the preaching at his 
father’s house next day. 

The great “living-room” and adjoining 
kitchen were both filled, and on Sunday morn- 
ing the preacher stood in the doorway be- 
tween the two, with a chair before him to 
support his Bible and hymn-book. Having 


THE PIONEER PREACHER . 


155 


announced his text — “ Repent ye, therefore, 
and be converted, that your sins may be 
blotted out when the times of refreshing shall 
come from the presence of the Lord ” — he 
closed his book, and delivered, not an exposi- 
tion, but a fervent exhortation, mingled, on 
the part of both speaker and hearers, with 
strong crying and tears. The class-meeting, 
in which the Hecks, Lawrences, Samuel Em- 
bury, and others who now for the first time 
met, was held, and was a Bethel of delight. 

The afternoon and evening congregations 
were so large that the preaching had to be 
held in the large barn. By night the fame of 
the preacher had spread far and wide, and — 
moved by devotion, by curiosity, or by a de- 
sire to scoff and scorn — the whole neighbor- 
hood was present. Of the latter class was a 
wild and reckless young man, Joe Brouse by 
name, who, standing near the door, was at- 
tempting to turn into mockery and derision 
the solemnities of divine worship. Aroused 
to holy indignation by this sacrilege, Losee 
lifted his eyes and hands to heaven, and cried 

out, like one of the Hebrew prophets: “Smite 
11 


BARBARA HECK. 


156 

him, my God! my God, smite him!” “He 
fell like a bullock under the stroke of the 
butcher’s ax,” writes the historian of the 
scene, “and writhed on the floor in agony 
until the Lord in mercy set his soul at lib- 
erty.” * The emotion of that rustic congre- 
gation became uncontrollable. Sighs and 
groans and tears were heard on every side. 
Preaching was impossible, and Losee and the 
members of the little Methodist class gave 
themselves to prayer, to counseling the seek- 
ers after salvation, and to the singing of 
hymns, which had a strangely tranquillizing 
effect upon the congregation. 

Early the next morning, Losee was on his 
way to the Bay of Quints and Niagara Settle- 
ments, leaving an appointment for that day 
four weeks. Such was the aggressive mode 
of gospel warfare of the pioneer itinerant. 

There was much difference of sentiment in 
the little community as to the services of the 
day. The Methodists were greatly refreshed 
in spirit, and Barbara Heck declared that it 

*'Dr. Carroll’s “Case, and his Contemporaries,” Vol. 

I, p. 8. 


THE PIONEER PREACHER . 157 

was “a day of the Son of man and of power.” 
Jonas Whiteside refrained from criticism, fur- 
ther than to say that “God was not in the 
earthquake, nor in the thunder, but in the 
still small voice.” Soft-voiced Hannah White- 
side shrank within herself as from something 
which jarred painfully upon her sensitive 
spirit. Colonel Pemberton quite lost his po- 
liteness in his anger that his son Reginald, 
his hope and pride, through the ranting of a 
Methodist fanatic, should degrade himself by 
weeping for his sins and crying for pardon 
alongside of that reprobate, Joe Brouse. Mrs. 
Pemberton, a sincere and pious soul, trembled 
with joy at her son’s conversion and fear at 
her husband’s wrath. Mammy Dinah was in 
ecstasies of joy. Her “ hallelujahs ” and “ bress 
de Lo’ds” were frequent and loud. “Dis is 
de ole kind o’ ’ligion,” she said to Aunt Chloe, 
“like we had in Ole Virginny.” But Uncle Pom- 
pey shook his head doubtfully, because it was a 
Methodist and not a Baptist preacher through 
whose ministrations the awakening took place. 
But Joe Brouse, out of the depths of his con- 
scious experience, exclaimed: “Whether he be 


158 


BARBARA HECK . 


a ranting fanatic, I know not; but one thing 
I know — whereas I was blind, now I see.” 
And his strangely-altered life and godly con- 
versation were a demonstration of the new 
light that had fallen on his soul. For drunk- 
enness and cursing, he put on the garments 
of sobriety and praise; and none were more 
diligent in attending the Methodist class and 
prayer meeting, or more zealous in good 
works. 


Chapter XIV. 

THE RECRUIT. 

PAINFUL scene took place between 



Colonel Pemberton and his son as the 
result of the great awakening which accom- 
panied Losee’s preaching. The young man 
had become a zealous attendant at the Meth- 
odist meetings, and, overcoming his natural 
reserve, had thrown himself eagerly into 
Christian work, taking part in public prayer, 
and exhorting earnestly at the inquiry meet- 
ings which from night to night were held in 
Paul Heck’s house. 

“ Do you mean to set at defiance your 
father’s authority, and to cast in your lot with 
those fanatical Methodists?” demanded the 
colonel, in a towering rage, one Monday morn- 
ing, after Reginald had been particularly ear- 
nest at the meeting the night before. 

“ Father, I owe you all obedience in things 
temporal ; but where my duty toward God is 
clear, I dare not disobey him.” 


159 


l6o BARBARA HECK . 

“And who is to be the judge of your duty, 
I ’d like to know, unless your father?” de- 
manded the choleric old gentleman. 

“We must each give account of our own 
selves unto God, and I can not violate my 
conscience even for the best of fathers.” 

“Why, this is flat rebellion, you ingrate,” 
exclaimed the imperious colonel, quite ignor- 
ing a plea which his own better judgment 
would have been constrained to admit. 

“Nay, father,” replied the youth, respect- 
fully, “not rebellion, but the truest loyalty to 
the Supreme Authority.” 

“Well, all I have to say is this,” exclaimed 
the colonel, in an outburst of petulance, “if 
you join those fanatical Methodists, you are 
no longer a son of mine.” 

“O, don’t say that, father — anything but 
that!” cried Reginald, with an agonized ex- 
pression. 

“I have said it, and I mean it, too. Your 
home shall be no more beneath this roof. 
Well, what is your choice?” asked the stem 
parent, with a gesture of impatience. 

“My choice is made,” replied the boy, with 


THE RECRUIT . 161 

a pale but resolute expression. “I have joined 
the Methodists, and I will not forsake them. 
It would be betraying my Master to turn back 
from following after him.” 

“Well, as you have made your bed, you 
must lie in it. Go! Let me see your face no 
more!” and the old gentleman turned angrily 
away. 

“O father, do not spurn me from your 
door!” cried Reginald, seizing his hand; “or 
let me see my mother once more before I go.” 

“No!” exclaimed the testy sire; “you are 
breaking her heart with your ingratitude. It 
will only give her needless pain,” and he 
snatched his hand suddenly away, and strode 
out of the barn, where this interview had 
taken place. 

Reginald threw himself on the wheat-straw 
in an agony of sobs and tears. The world 
seemed to whirl around him. He seemed 
sunken in the darkest midnight of despair. 
The strongest earthly ties had snapped 
asunder. It seemed as if the solid earth it- 
self were rocking beneath his feet. In this 
tempest of his soul there stole a thought — 


162 


BARBARA HECK . 


almost an audible voice, it seemed — of sweet 
and calm assurance, that tranquillized his 
spirit: “When thy father and mother forsake 
thee, then the Lord will take thee up;” and 
in prayer to his Father in heaven his agitated 
feelings found repose. 

He went forth an exile from his father’s 
house, with nothing but the homespun clothes 
in which he stood. He wended his way to 
the Quaker Settlement to ask for work. The 
good Quaker, Jonas Whiteside, finding in his 
heroic spirit something akin to his own doc- 
trine of passive resistance to persecution, 
which the history of his sect had so signally 
illustrated, gave him work and wages, which 
relieved him from present anxiety about earn- 
ing a living. It was very galling, however, 
to the proud colonel to have his son and heir 
working as a hired servant with his Quaker 
neighbor. 

True as the sun to its appointed time, on 
the evening before the meeting announced by 
Elder Losee, that active itinerant cantered 
into the clearing of the Heck Settlement, very 
much bespattered with mud, and with gar- 


THE RECRUIT . 


163 

ments somewhat frayed from contact with the 
tangled underbrush of the wilderness; but 
buoyant in heart and hope. In answer to 
minute inquiry after the welfare and progress 
of the recent converts, he soon learned the 
story of Reginald’s persecution and religious 
fortitude. During the Sunday he called upon 
him to pray, to speak in class, and to exhort 
at the close of the afternoon meeting. After 
supper he asked him to take a walk upon the 
river bank. In the mellow light of the set- 
ting sun they strolled along the lake-like 
margin of the broad St. Lawrence, Losee 
speaking of the triumphs of the gospel during 
his four weeks’ ride of some six hundred miles, 
and Reginald modestly answering the ques- 
tions which he asked him. At length Losee 
stopped short, and, laying his hand impress- 
ively upon the young man’s shoulder, said, 
abruptly: 

“My brother, the Lord hath need of thee. 
You must come with me!” 

“Come where?” asked Reginald, in sur- 
prise. 

“Wherever the Lord shall show the way. 


164 BARBARA HECK . 

I believe you are called of God to preach the 
gospel. You must not be disobedient to the 
heavenly call.” 

“When I gave myself to the Lord,” said 
the young man, after a short pause, “I gave 
myself wholly, to do his will in any way that 
he should show me. I would not run before 
I am sent; but if he opens a way to preach 
his Word, I would rejoice to go. I feel very 
unfit and ignorant, but I have a joy in my soul 
that I long to tell my fellow-men.” 

“Praise the Lord!” exclaimed the pioneer 
preacher, with old-fashioned Methodist zeal. 
“May it be as a fire in your bones that will 
not be suppressed ! I forewarn you, you shall 
have hard toil and poor fare, and it may be 
hunger and cold and peril and want; but God 
calls you to the noblest work on earth, and to 
a crown of glory in the skies.” 

“My soul says, ‘Here am I, Lord, send me, 
if it be thy will, anywhere, or to do any 
work,’ ” said the young man, with solemn en- 
thusiasm. “When I was quite a boy I fol- 
lowed the king’s flag in more than one stormy 
fight, and suffered bonds and imprisonment 


THE RECRUIT. 165 

for his cause, and now I am not afraid to do 
as much for my Heavenly King.” 

“ Have you a horse?” abruptly asked Losee. 

“No, nor a bridle either; but I have a good 
pair of legs,” said Reginald, with a smile. 

“You must have a horse,” said the preacher, 
decidedly. “You might as well try to fly as 
walk the rounds you will have to go.” 

“That means that the Lord don’t want 
me to go, then, till I can earn money to buy 
a horse.” 

“I am not so sure about that,” replied 
Losee. “Leave that to me.” 

And they walked back in the deepening 
twilight to the barn, where a large company 
were assembled — vaguely seen by the light of 
a few lanterns — the men grouped on the right 
and the women on the left. 

“Can you lend young Pemberton a horse, 
to ride the circuit with me?” Losee asked 
Paul Heck that night, as they walked from 
the barn. 

“Ay, can I, as long as he likes,” said the 
generous Irish heart; “and do you mean to 
take him with you now?” 


66 


BARBARA HECK, 


“Ay. The lad has preaching timber in 
him, and I want to get him broken in a bit 
before I recommend him to Conference.’’ 

So next morning, Reginald, in his home- 
spun clothes, rode away, mounted on Paul 
Heck’s sorrel colt. Saddle, he had none; but 
in lieu thereof he rode upon a folded sheep- 
skin, girt upon the horse. In this manner 
were the early Methodist preachers sometimes 
summoned to their work— like David from the 
sheepcotes, or Elisha from the plow, or Amos 
from the herds, or Peter from his nets; and 
without staff or scrip, or money in their purse, 
they fared forth on their spiritual errand. 

Great was the surprise and chagrin of Colo- 
nel Pemberton when he heard that his son 
had not only cast in his lot with the despised 
Methodists, but, worse than all, had gone of! 
with a wandering Methodist preacher. But 
his mother received the tidings with a secret 
and tremulous joy, which was deepened by 
the message of filial love which Reginald 
found an opportunity to send her, which was 
a comfort and a support to her heart in many 
an hour of weary watching and prayer. 


Chapter XV. 

THE CAMP-MEETING. 

HE Heck Settlement had become an im- 



* portant center of religious life and ac- 
tivity. Here was organized the oldest and 
most flourishing of the Methodist societies of 
Canada, and here was held the first of Cana- 
dian camp-meetings. Further arrivals of refu- 
gees — Methodists, Quakers, and Cavaliers; 
some of the latter accompanied by their do- 
mestic slaves — had increased the population 
of the settlement and its vicinity to quite a 
numerous community. The Rev. Darius 
Dunham, the presiding elder, sent by the 
Methodist Episcopal Church of the United 
States, made arrangements for the holding of 
a camp-meeting in this comparatively popu- 
lous neighborhood. The announcement cre- 
ated great excitement throughout the whole 
country-side. It was a meeting quite un- 
known to any of the settlers except a few 
from Virginia, where similar meetings had 


BARBARA HECK. 


1 68 

been lield, chiefly among the slave popula- 
tion. Mammy Dinah and Aunt Chloe were 
greatly elated at the prospect of enjoying 
what they called “de ole-time religion” foi 
which their souls had been pining ever since 
they had come to this cold northern land. 
The old colonel sniffed and “pshawed;” but 
out of regard to what he deemed the preju- 
dices of his wife, did not oppose a service 
which he admitted might do very well for 
slaves. 

Upon the Methodists, of course, fell the 
chief burden of the preparation. A lovely 
grove of stately, clean-trunked beeches and 
maples was selected, overlooking the broad 
St. Lawrence, and the underbrush was care- 
fully cleared away. A rough stand, sheltered 
by an awning of beechen boughs, was erected 
for the preachers, and rough booths for the 
temporary lodging of the worshipers. Great 
was the activity in the roomy Heck kitchen, 
where Dame Barbara, on hospitable thoughts 
intent, presided over the victualing of the 
camp as if to stand a siege. In this generous 


THE CAMP-MEETING. 


169 


provision the good Quakers heartily assisted, 
and his old-time Virginian hospitality so far 
overcame the prejudices of Colonel Pember- 
ton as to allow Dinah and Chloe, under the 
superintendence of their mistress, to exhaust 
their skill in the culinary art in the same 
behalf. 

The first service was a prayer-meeting of 
remarkable spiritual power, held on Saturday 
night, as a preparation for the solemnities of 
the Sabbath. The Sunday was a high day. 
The number present, considering the sparsely- 
settled state of the country, was very extraor- 
dinary. One would have wondered where all 
the people came from. But for thirty or forty 
miles up and down the river they came in 
bateaux or Durham boats, and not a few In- 
dians came in their bark canoes to witness a 
service which they could not comprehend, but 
of which they felt the strange power. 

The interest culminated in the service of 
Sunday night. Elder Dunham — a tall, dark 
man, with hair of raven blackness, so long 
that it flowed down upon his shoulders, and 


BARBARA HECK. 


170 

an eye of strangely magnetic power — preached 
a soul-shaking sermon from the text, “ For 
we must all appear before the judgment-seat 
of Christ: that every one may receive the 
things done in his body, according to that he 
hath done, whether it be good or bad.” With 
thrilling tones and vivid imagery, he described 
the solemn assize; the great white throne, and 
Him that sat thereon ; and the august scenes 
of the final judgment, such as in solemn fres- 
coes or austere mosaics have frowned down 
for centuries from cathedral apse or tribune 
on awestruck generations of worshipers. His 
rustic audience was an eminently impressible 
one. They had no doubts of the awful reality 
and strict literalness of the dreadful verities 
of the Judgment-day. As knowing the terrors 
of the Lord, the preacher endeavored to per- 
suade men to flee from the wrath to come, 
and to lay hold on eternal life. Sobs and 
cries of emotion were heard, as wave after 
wave of intense feeling swept over the au- 
dience. 

None of them had ever heard of Thomas 
of Celano’s wonderful “Dies Irse, Dies Illa,’ > 


THE CAMP-MEETING . 


171 

yet every heart responded to its sublime 
imagery : 

“ Day of wrath ! 0 day of mourning ! 

See fulfilled the prophet’s warning — 

Heaven and earth in ashes burning! 

O, what fear man’s bosom rendeth, 

When from heaven the Judge descendeth, 

On whose sentence all dependeth ! 

Wondrous sound the trumpet flingeth, 

Through earth’s sepulchers it ringeth, 

All before the throne it bringeth. 

Death is struck, and nature quaking; 

All creation is awaking, 

To its Judge an answer making. 

King of majesty tremendous, 

Who dost free salvation send us — 

Fount of pity, then befriend us ! 

Think, Lord Jesu, my salvation 
Caused thy wondrous incarnation ; 

Leave me not to reprobation. 

Faint and weary, thou hast sought me ; 

On the cross of suffering bought me, — 

Shall such grace be vainly brought me ? 

Guilty, now I pour my moaning, 

All my shame with anguish owning; 

Spare, O God, thy suppliant groaning! 

While the wicked are confounded, 

Doomed to flames of woe unbounded, 

Call me, with thy saints surrounded. 

12 


172 


BARBARA HECK. 


. Ah! that day of tears and mourning! 

From the dust of earth returning, 

Man for judgment must prepare him ; 

Spare, 0 God, in mercy spare him !” * 

The scene verged on the sublime. A sea 
of upturned faces were gazing with an awe- 
struck fascination on the earnest-souled 
preacher, who seemed inspired by the grand- 
eur of his theme. Strong, Rembrandt-like 
lights and shadows flitted over the congrega- 
tion as the fires upon the raised platforms 
flared and flickered in the evening breeze, 
bringing into strong relief the intense expres- 


*The strange spell of this marvelous hymn is hut inad- 
equately felt in even the best translation. Never was the sono-~ 
rous Datin tongue more grandly used. Dr. Johnson could 
never read it without weeping : 

“ Dies irae, dies ilia, 

Solvet saeclum in favilla, 

Teste David cum Sybilla. 

Quantus tremor est futurus, 

Quando Judex est ven turns, 

Cuncta stricte discussurus ! 

Tuba mirum spargens sonum 
Per sepulcra regionum 
Coget omnes ante thronum. 

Mors stupebit, et natura, 

Quum resurget creatura 
Judicanti responsura. 


THE CAMP-MEETING. 


173 


sions of hope or fear or anguish written on 
many a face. The foliage of the beeches and 
maples gleamed like burnished bronze in the 
bright light of the fires, blending into a sil- 
very white where touched by the rays of the 
full moon riding in majesty in the heavens, 
and reflected in the broad reaches of the 
rushing river. And all around a dense girdle 
of darkness seemed to shut them in like a 
solid wall. 

After the sermon, Dunham invited the 
“mourners” to come to the “penitent bench” 

Rex tremendae majestatis, 

Que salvandos salvas gratis, 

Salva me, fons pietatis ! 

Recordare, Jesu pie, 

Quod sum causa tuae viae 
Ne me perdas ilia die ! 

Quaerens me sedisti lassus, 

Redemisti cruce passus : 

Tantus labor non sit cassus ! 

Ingemisco tanquam reus, 

Culpa rubet vultus meus 
Supplicanti parce, Deus ! 

Confutatis maledictis, 

Flammis acribus addictis 
Voca me cum benedictis. 

Racrymosa dies ilia, 

Qua resurget ex favilla 
Judicandus homo reus ; 

Huic ergo parce Deus !” 


174 


BARBARA HECK. 


(a rough slab of wood in front of the pulpit), 
and Eosee and Reginald Pemberton “ex- 
horted” the agitated multitude, while several 
of the brethren prayed in turn, or, indeed, 
sometimes two or three at once. Amid the 
tumult of cries and sobs and prayers, at in- 
tervals, Elder Dunham, or some one gifted in 
song, would raise a hymn, which soon ab- 
sorbed in its resonant cadences all other 
sounds. One hymn, suggested by the subject 
of the sermon, sung in a minor key to a wail- 
ing sort of tune, seemed to shake the hearts 
of the entire assembly. It ran thus, with its 
sad refrain: 

“ O, there ’ll be mourning, mourning, mourning, mourning, 
O, there ’ll be mourning 
At the judgment-seat of Christ.” 

Then rang out the grand old hymn, 

“ Lo ! He comes with clouds descending,” 

rising to an exulting paean of triumph and 
holy joy: 

“Yea, Amen! let all adore thee, 

High on thy eternal throne ! 

Savior, take the power and glory; 

Claim the kingdom as thine own ! 

Jah! Jehovah! 

Everlasting God, come down !” 


THE CAMP-MEETING . 


175 


Uncles Pomp and Jule, Mammy Dinah, 
Aunt Chloe, and others of the Virginian slaves, 
sat in a group by themselves, and ever and 
anon took captive the entire audience by some 
weird strain of singular sweetness and pathos, 
whicli it seemed to have caught from the 
murmuring of the night- winds through the 
Southern cypress-groves. One of these ran: 

“I ’ll hear de trumpet sound 
Right early in de morning ; 

Gwine to ride up in de chariot 
Right early in de morning.” 

Another, which to us seems almost gro- 
tesque in its language, though it gave no such 
suggestion to its simple hearers, ran thus: 

“I ’m a- rolling, I ’m a-rolling, I ’m a- rolling 

Through an unfriendly world ; 

I ’m a-rolling, I ’m a-rolling 

Through an unfriendly world. 

O brothers, won’t you help me? 

O brothers, won’t you help me to pray? 

O brothers, won’t you help me to pray? 

Won’t you help me in the service of the Lord?” 

Of deep personal significance to many of 
these poor exiles was the following: 

“When I was down in Egypt’s land, 

Close by the river, 

I heard one tell of the Promised Land, 

Down by the river side. 


176 


BARBARA HECK. 


Chorus — We ’ll end this strife, 

Down by the river ; 

We ’ll end this strife, 

Down by the river side. 

I never shall forget the day, 

Down by the river, 

When Jesus washed my sins away, 
Down by the river side. 

Chorus — We ’ll end, etc. 

Shout, dear children, for you are free, 
Down by the river ; 

Christ has bought your liberty, 

Down by the river side. 

Chorus — We ’ll end, etc.” 


The words and air of one of the most 
beautiful of these Southern songs were as 
follows : 



THE CAMP-MEETING. 


177 


The favorite of all those weird refrains, 
however, with which those Southern exotics 
in our Northern clime used to solace their 
souls, singing the Lord’s song in a strange 
land, was one which ran thus: 


Swing low, sweet char-i - ot ; Coming for to car-ry me home. 

Fine. 


Swing low, sweet char-i - ot ; Coming for to car-ry me home. 


Elder Dunham had himself lived in the 
South, and knew how to make these tender 
plantation melodies subserve the interests of 
religion, and deepen the impression of the 
preaching and the prayers. 

The result of the camp-meeting was a con- 
siderable accession to the Methodist society, 
and also a deepening of the prejudice against 
their noisy services on the part of the quiet- 
loving Quakers, who at their meetings would 
sit silent for an hour, communing with their 
own hearts, and then go away greatly edified. 
“They judged no man,” they said, however. 
But Colonel Pemberton was less charitable. 


178 


BARBARA HECK . 


He strongly denounced the proceedings as a 
“perfect Bedlam,” and seemed more than 
ever estranged from his son as a “fanatical 
Bedlamite.” 


Chapter XVI. 

A HOPE SPRINGS UP. 



HE early Methodist preachers not only 


* proclaimed their glad evangel in the 
woods, in the highway, in barns, and wher- 
ever an opportunity occurred, they also vis- 
ited diligently from house to house, seeking 
by their godly counsel and prayers to deepen 
the impressions of their public ministry. 
The house of Colonel Pemberton was not 
overlooked by either William Eosee or Darius 
Dunham in these visitations. Although the 
gallant colonel bore little love to the Method- 
ist itinerants, still his Virginian hospitality 
and his instincts as a gentleman made him 
give them a sort of constrained welcome to 
his house. 

The Methodist preachers, moreover, felt it 
their duty to go, not merely where they 
found a cordial reception, but wherever they 
had an opportunity to speak a word for their 
Master. They had also additional reasons for 


i8o 


BARBARA HECK \ 


visiting the Pemberton mansion, as, from its 
size, it was generally called in the neighbor- 
hood. Mrs. Pemberton, although not a 
Methodist, was a saintly soul of deep relig- 
ious experience, and the visits of these godly 
men, and any tidings they could bring of her 
wandering boy — exiled from his father’s 
house — was welcome as water to thirsty lips. 

Miss Blanche Pemberton, too, the colonel’s 
only daughter, exerted a powerful attraction 
over both of these homeless, wandering men. 
To great personal beauty she added a culti- 
vated understanding and a character made up 
of a strange blending of her father’s high spirit 
and her mother’s gentleness of disposition and 
spirituality of mind. Her baptismal name 
was certainly a misnomer; for the warm blood 
of the South mantled in her dusky cheek, 
and its fires slumbered in her deep dark eyes, 
making one feel that, notwithstanding the 
seeming languor of her manner, there was in 
her abundant energy of character if it were 
only aroused. She possessed a keenness of 
conception and a readiness of expression, and 
had enjoyed a range of reading uncommon in 


A HOPE SPRINGS UP. 


Si 


that day, that made her company a rich de- 
light to both of these Methodist itinerants. 
Neither dreamed at the time of being the 
rival of the other in seeking the affections of 
the lady, for neither had a home to offer, and 
neither thought of asking the delicately-nur- 
tured girl to leave her father’s comfortable 
house and share his wanderings in the wil- 
derness. 

The exigencies of the itinerancy now sent 
Eosee to a distant part of the country on the 
lower St. Lawrence. Mr. Dunham, during 
his periodical returns to the Heck Settlement, 
felt the spell of the fair Blanche’s attractions, 
and as often as duty would permit, sought her 
society. The young lady, too, found in his 
presence and conversation a pleasure different 
from any experienced in the rustic community 
of the neighborhood. Elder Dunham, a man of 
very superior parts, and of a natural eloquence 
of expression, had cultivated his powers by a 
considerable amount of reading, and by ex- 
tensive travel and intercourse with many 
minds of different walks and ranks of life. 
Humanity, after all, is the grandest book. 


82 


BARBARA HECK. 


“The proper study of mankind is man,” and 
no study will so cultivate one’s powers and 
increase one’s efficiency as a leader and teacher 
of his fellow-men. 

The habit of introspection and self-exam- 
ination of the early Methodists soon revealed 
to Elder Dunham the true state of his feel- 
ings toward the fair Blanche Pemberton. 
Dike an honorable man, he at once declared 
his sentiments to her parents. From her 
mother he received, if not encouragement, at 
least tacit approval. 

“I would never attempt to coerce my 
daughter’s affections,” she said, for she was 
not without a vein of tender romance in her 
gentle nature. “Her heart is a woman’s 
kingdom, which she must rule for herself. 
Her all of happiness for time, and often for 
eternity, is at stake, and she must decide for 
herself.” 

“’Tis all I wish, my dear madam,” said 
the preacher with effusion; and then with 
that proud humility which every true man 
feels in comparison with the woman whom he 
loves, he went on, “I know I am unworthy 


A HOPE SPRINGS UP. 


83 


of lier, and have nothing to offer for the 
priceless gift of her love but a heart that will 
never fail in its devotion.” 

“ No woman can have more,” said this 
wise mother, “and I desire for her no greater 
happiness than the love of a true and loyal 
heart.” 

From the father, however, the preacher 
met a very different reception. 

“What! was it not enough to steal from 
me my son, without trying to take my daughter 
also? No, sir, I will not give my consent; 
and I forbid the girl thinking of such a thing, 
or indeed seeing you at all unless you give 
your word of honor that you will not broach 
such a preposterous idea.” 

Now, no man likes to have the homage of 
his heart treated as a preposterous idea. 
Nevertheless, Elder Dunham, with an effort, 
restrained his feelings and calmly answered: 

“I can give no such promise, sir; and I 
tell you frankly, I shall feel at perfect liberty 
to win your daughter’s heart and hand if I 
can.” 

“What! will you beard me to my very 


184 


BARBARA HECK. 


face?” exclaimed the choleric old gentleman. 
“I’ll keep the girl under lock and key, if nec- 
essary, to prevent her linking her fortunes 
with a wandering circuit-rider, without house 
or home.” 

“God will provide us both in his own good 
time,” said the preacher, devoutly; “and con- 
sider, sir, you may be frustrating your daugh- 
ter’s happiness as well as mine.” 

“Blanche has too much of her father’s 
spirit,” said the old man haughtily, “to de- 
grade herself — excuse me, sir — to degrade her- 
self to such a lackland marriage.” 

“Miss Pemberton will never do aught that 
will misbecome her father’s daughter; of that 
you may be sure,” said the preacher, with a 
hectic spot burning in his cheek; and, bowing 
stiffly, he left the house. 

Elder Dunham was not the man to give 
up his quest for such a repulse as this, espe- 
cially with such an object in view. Never- 
theless, he was considerably embarrassed. 
His sense of personal dignity and propriety 
would not allow him to enter a house in which 
such words had been addressed him as 


A HOPE SPRINGS UP. 


185 

those which fell, like molten lead, from the 
lips of the angry colonel, on his heart. He 
was a man of too high honor to attempt a 
clandestine intercourse or even interview. 
What should he do? He did not wish to 
make Blanche’s mother a mediatrix against 
her husband’s wishes. Yet it was at least 
right that Blanche should know definitely his 
feelings, of which he had not previously ven- 
tured to speak to her. He determined to 
write a full, frank letter, avowing his love, re- 
counting her father’s objections to his suit, 
and expressing his confidence that God would 
give his smile and blessing to their union in 
his own good time. 

“I do not ask you for an answer now,” the 
letter ended. “Wait, reflect, ask guidance 
from on high. The way will open if it be 
God’s will, and I feel sure it is. I will have 
patience; I have faith.” 

This letter he inclosed, unsealed, in a note 
to her mother, requesting her to read it and 
then hand it to her daughter. 

This letter, without opening it, Mrs. Pem- 
berton handed to Blanche, saying: “Daughter, 


i86 


BARBARA HECK. 


if this be, as I suspect, the offer of a good 
man’s love, take counsel of God and of your 
own heart, and may both guide you aright.” 

In less than an hour Blanche came out of 
her little private room with a new light in her 
eyes and a nobler bearing in her gait. In- 
cedit regina — she walked a queen, crowned 
with the noblest wreath that woman’s brow 
can wear — the love and homage of a true- 
hearted man. 

“ Mother, I have loved him long,” she said, 
and she flung herself upon that tender bosom 
which all her life long had throbbed only with 
truest, fondest mother love. 

“God bless you, my darling!” whispered 
the mother through her tears, as she fervently 
kissed her daughter’s forehead, and pressed 
her to her heart. 

Few words were spoken; nor was there 
need. There is a silence more eloquent than 
speech. Their spirits were in full accord, 
and never was the sympathy between their 
hearts so strong, so full and free as when — 
her nature deepening well-like, clear — the 
daughter sat at her mother’s feet, no longer a 


A HOPE SPRINGS UP. 


187 


light-hearted girl, “in maiden meditation, 
fancy free,” but a woman dowered with life’s 
richest gift — the love of a true and loyal 
heart. Happy mother! happy child! that 
each, in such an hour, enjoys the fullest confi- 
dence and sympathy of the other. 

“Well, what answer shall I send?” asked 
the mother with a smile. 

“Only this,” said Blanche, handing her 
mother her Bible — a dainty volume bound in 
purple velvet, with golden clasps — a birthday 
present from her mother in the happy days 
before the cruel war. “Only this. He will 
understand. We must wait till God shall 
open our way.” 

“Be brave, my child; be patient, be true, 
and all will be well.” 

Although Elder Dunham had not asked an 
answer, and hardly expected one, yet he paced 
up and down, in no small perturbation, the 
little room in the hospitable home of Paul 
and Barbara Heck which they designated 
“the prophet’s chamber,” and which was 
set apart for the use of the traveling 
preacher. He tried to read, he tried to write, 

13 


i88 


BARBARA HECK . 


but in vain ; he could fix his mind on nothing, 
and his nervous agitation found relief only in 
a hurried and impatient pacing up and down 
the floor. 

“ What is the matter with the preacher to- 
day, I wonder?” said Dame Barbara to Good- 
man Paul. “He never went on like that 
afore.” 

“He has some’at on his mind, you may 
be sure. Perhaps he’s making up his sermon. 
A rare good one it will be, I doubt not,” said 
Paul. 

“I hope he is not ill, poor man. I noticed 
he looked pale when he came in,” replied 
Dame Barbara. 

If she could have seen him a few minutes 
later, as he opened the small package brought 
him by a messenger from the Pemberton farm, 
she would have been relieved of all anxiety as 
to his well-being of body or of mind. As he 
unfolded the dainty parcel, he observed a leaf 
turned and the Bible opened of itself at the 
Book of Ruth. A special mark on the mar- 
gin called his attention to the sixteenth and 
seventeenth verses of the first chapter. Not 


A HOPE SPRINGS UP. 


189 


a written line, but those pencil marks with the 
initials u B. P.” made him the happiest of men 
as he read the touching declaration: “Whither 
thou goest, I will go ; and where thou lodgest, 
I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, 
and thy God my God: where thou diest will I 
die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do 
so to me, and more also, if aught but death 
part thee and me.” He raised the sweet 
words to his lips, then pressed the book to his 
heart, and said with all the solemnity of an 
oath: “The Lord do so to me, and more also, 
if I be not worthy of such love.” 


Chapter XVII. 

A BEESSING IN DISGUISE. 


HE call of duty summoned the zealous 



I itinerant to the farthest end of his vast 
circuit. But as he rode through the miry 
forest trail — marked out by the “blaze” upon 
the trunks of the trees — he felt no sense of 
loneliness ; for a fair presence seemed ever to 
brighten his path, and a soft voice seemed ever 
to whisper in his ear, “ Whither thou goest I 
will go; where thou lodgest, I will lodge.” He 
cherished the sweet thought in his soul, and 
was inspired thereby to loftier faith, and 
grander courage, and sublimer patience, and 
intenser zeal. And he had need of all. For 
weary weeks he received no sign nor token, 
no word of communication from the object of 
his heart’s devotion. When he preached at 
“The Settlement,” every member of the 
squire’s household was conspicuously absent 
except the faithful blacks, who, though the 
slaves of an earthly master, rejoiced in the 


A BLESSING IN DISGUISE. 191 

liberty wherewith Christ makes his own 
people free. 

“The squire takes on powerful bad about 
his son joining the Methodists,” said Good- 
man Paul Heck one day. “He kind o’ spites 
me, too, for lending him the colt. But right 
is right; and if it was to do, I’d do it again.” 

“He need not be so bitter,” said Dame 
Barbara. “He won’t even let his wife or 
daughter attend the preaching any more. 
He minds me of those that shut up the king- 
dom of heaven against men, who neither go 
in themselves nor suffer them that are enter- 
ing to go in. What can he expect for harden- 
ing his heart against God, but a judgment 
like that which befell Pharaoh?” 

And before long an affliction which the 
pious Barbara recognized as a “judgment” 
did befall the proud colonel, which humbled 
his stubborn heart beneath the mighty hand 
of God. One day, late in November, he was, 
with his hired men, rafting timber down the 
river for a barn which he proposed framing 
during the winter. By an inadvertence of the 
man who was steering, the raft was driven by 


192 


BARBARA HECK . 


the rapid current upon a sunken rock and 
knocked to pieces. It was near the shore, so 
they all got safe to land without much 
trouble; but the immersion in the cold water, 
after having been overheated by exercise, 
brought on a severe attack of rheumatism 
which at length assumed a typhoid type. 
The old gentleman was at first very irascible 
under the excruciating agonies which racked 
his frame. But the patient and loving atten- 
tions of his wife and daughter, who minis- 
tered like angels beside his couch of pain, 
seemed to work a wondrous change in his 
nature. 

“You make me ashamed of myself, my 
patient Griselda,” he said one day to his wife, 
who watched with unwearied love the long 
night through beside him. “I am a great, 
fretful baby, yet you nurse me as tenderly as 
a mother her first-born.” 

“You are^ more than a first-born to me,” 
she said, laying her hand in a soft caress 
upon his brow. He caught her hand and 
pressed it to his feverish lips, and she felt a 
hot tear of compunction fall upon it. 


A BLESSING IN DISGUISE. 


193 


“ I ’ve used you shamefully,” he said. 
“Will you forgive me? And I hope God will 
forgive me too. You shall worship him as 
you please henceforth.” 

The faithful soul rejoiced with a great joy, 
remembering the words, “ For what knowest 
thou, O wife! whether thou slialt save thy 
husband?” and said softly, “Let us worship 
him together, my beloved;” and, kneeling by 
his side, she lifted up her heart and voice in 
fervent, tremulous prayer to God. Her hus- 
band’s hand lay like a benediction on her 
brow, and their spirits drew closer together 
than at any time since her first-born son — her 
beloved Reginald — had been driven from his 
father’s house. 

The next day, as Blanche sat by her 
father’s side, he said abruptly: “Blanche, 
send for your brother.” 

“O, father, you are so good, so kind!” she 
cried, as she flung her arms around his neck. 
“I will send this very day; but it may be a 
week before he can come.” 

“I’m not good, child, nor kind; but, God 
helping me, I ’ll try to be so,” faltered the old 


194 


BARBARA HECK . 


man as, with feeble hand, he caressed her 
brow. 

That night a joyful surprise awaited them 
all. The early nightfall came dark and 
cloudy. The wind moaned through the sur- 
rounding forest, and whined like a homeless 
hound about the door. The rain fell in pat- 
tering gusts against the window-panes. The 
fire flashed and flickered and roared up the 
chimney throat. A wistful look was in the 
dark eyes of the sick man, which seemed all 
the darker by contrast with his pallid brow 
and snowy hair; and the moan and roar of 
the wind over the chimney-top seemed to 
trouble his mind. Was he .thinking of his 
wandering boy, whom he had driven into the 
stormy world from the shelter of his father’s 
house? Suddenly there was a quick yelp, as 
of recognition, by the house-dog, and a stamp- 
ing of feet in the outer porch. Blanche 
sprang to the door and flung it wide open, 
and there, with the rain dripping from his 
great frieze coat, stood the object of his 
father’s anxious thoughts, and of his mother’s 
constant prayers. Flinging aside his coat, 


A BLESSING IN DISGUISE. 


1 95 


after a hurried embrace of his mother and 
sister, he threw himself on his knees at his 
father’s bedside, exclaiming in a voice shaken 
by emotion: 

“ Father, I could n’t stay when I heard you 
were ill. Take off my sentence of banish- 
ment. Let me come back to help nurse you,” 
and he gazed eagerly and with a look of in- 
tensest affection in his father’s face. 

“ Welcome, my son, thrice welcome to 
your father’s house and to your father’s heart. 
Forgive me, as I trust God has forgiven me. 
My cup of joy is full. I am happier, with all 
these pains, than I ever was in my life.” 

And very happy they all were, as the 
flames leaped and roared up the wide-throated 
chimney as if in sympathetic joy. In the few 
months of his absence Reginald seemed to 
have changed from a boy to a man. A stamp 
of deeper thought was on his face, a deeper 
tone was in his voice, a graver air marked his 
mien. And as he sat between his mother and 
sister in the glancing firelight, he exhibited a 
chivalrous tenderness to the one and a fond 
affection for the other that brightened into 


196 BARBARA HECK . 

manly beauty his weather-bronzed counte- 
nance. 

“ Thank God,” said the colonel devoutly, 
“for the affliction that makes us once more a 
united family ! He has dealt with me in 
mercy, not in anger, and the chastenings of 
his hand are blessings in disguise.” 


Chapter XVIII. 

A HOPE FUEFIEEED. 



HE slow convalescence of Colonel Pember- 


1 ton was a time of rich spiritual profit and 
of deep domestic joy. More even than his 
wife or daughter, he seemed to like to have 
his son to wait upon him. And with the ten- 
derness of a girl, if without his sister’s deft- 
ness and grace, Reginald tutored his awkward 
hands to administer the medicine and the 
tasteful dainties prepared by his mother’s 
housewifely skill to tempt the invalid’s capri- 
cious appetite. And his strong arms could 
lift and move the pain-racked frame of the 
sufferer as no other could. 

It was now within a month of Christmas. 
Not a word had been said by any one with 
reference to the engagement of Blanche and 
Elder Dunham, although it was clearly under- 
stood by all. At last, one day, as Reginald 
sat by his father’s bedside reading to him a 


93 


BARBARA HECK. 


sermon of Mr. Wesley’s from the Arminian 
Magazine , the colonel abruptly said: 

u My son, I wish you would ask Elder Dun- 
ham to spend his Christmas here.” 

“Are you sure it would be agreeable to 
you both, father?” asked the young man, who 
rather dreaded a collision between two strong 
wills like theirs. 

“I have reason to believe that it will be 
more than agreeable to Mr. Dunham; and I 
have changed my views on a good many 
things while I have been lying here, so that 
it will be agreeable to me. I used him very 
unhandsomely the last time he was here, and 
I owe him the apology due from one gentle- 
man to another for an offense given.” 

“You will find he bears no malice, father,” 
said Reginald. “I heard him warmly defend- 
ing you against the abuse of a low-bred fellow 
who bore you a grudge for having, as magis- 
trate, sentenced him, for sheep-stealing, to the 
lock-up at Frontenac.” 

“Did you, indeed? I confess I am a little 
surprised at that, after the way I treated him.” 

“I will not see him myself before Christ- 


A HOPE FULFILLED. 


199 


mas, as I must go to the other end of the 
circuit, as soon as you are well enough for me 
to leave; but I can send word through Elder 
Eosee, who preaches here next week.” 

“Do; and ask Mr. Losee to eat his Christ- 
mas dinner with us, too.” 

“Would you like to entertain your friend 
Elder Dunham at Christmas, Blanche?” asked 
the colonel, later the same day. 

“If I do, father,” said the girl, flushing 
and then turning pale, “it must be as his be- 
trothed. I can not forsake him. I love you 
dearly, father, and never more than now,” and 
she flung her arms about his neck; “but the 
Bible tells us to leave father and mother for 
husband or wife.” 

“It tells you right, too. Forgive me, 
Blanche! I have been wrong to come between 
your heart and a noble man. It was my love 
for you that made me do it. I have learned 
that true happiness consists not in houses 
and lands, but in contentment and the bless- 
ing of God. If any one had told me a year 
ago that Colonel Pemberton would give his 
daughter to a landless, homeless Methodist 


200 


BARBARA HECK. 


preacher, I would have resented it with scorn. 
But I see things differently now.” 

“O father, you are so good, so kind!” ex- 
claimed the enthusiastic girl, renewing her 
caresses of her gray-liaired sire. “But I gain 
more, far more, than I lose — the priceless love 
of a true and honest heart. God will provide 
a home and living for us somehow, some- 
where, as he does for the birds of the air; 
they sow not, neither do they reap nor gather 
into barns, yet our Heavenly Father feedeth 
them; and are not we more precious than 
they ?” 

“I wish I had your faith, Blanche. But 
you shall never want a home, my child, while 
your father has a roof above his head. And 
I have been an obstacle to your happiness so 
long that I will keep you waiting no longer. 
If you wish to be married at Christmas, you 
have mine and your mother’s consent; and 
God’s blessing rest upon you!” 

And the old man’s voice faltered, and a tear 
rolled down his silvery beard as he laid his 
hands in benediction on her head. 

Blanche kissed the tear away, and blushed 


A HOPE FULFILLED . 


201 


a little, and, with a woman’s strange inconsis- 
tency, replied: 

“This is rather sudden, father. I don’t 
know wliat Darius” — what a name to fall 
soft as a caress from a woman’s lips ! — 
“will say.” 

“O, trust him!” said the old man, with a 
merry twinkle in his eye. “He ’ll not object, 
I ’ll warrant.” 

Reginald’s letter, duly conveyed by Elder 
Losee, explained the state of affairs to Mr. 
Dunham, and speedily brought that gentle- 
man to the Heck Settlement, to reach which 
he rode a hundred miles in two days. He 
stopped at his usual home — the house of the 
hospitable Hecks — to change his mud-bespat- 
tered riding-gear, and to don some fresh linen 
before presenting himself at the Pemberton 
mansion. 

“Right welcome, as you always are!” said 
Dame Barbara; “ but what brought you so soon? 
Sure your appointment is not for two weeks.” 

“The best business that ever brought any 
man,” said the elder, enigmatically; but he 
vouchsafed no further explanation. 


202 


BARBARA HECK. 


“You ’ll not venture out the night again, 
and it raining, and you so weary with your 
long ride?” she rejoined. 

“Yes, I must go over to the mansion to- 
night,” he answered laconically. 

“To the mansion — of all places in the 
world,” said Dame Barbara to Paul, after 
he had gone, “ when he has n’t been there 
for months and months! Whatever can. it 
mean?” 

Upon the sacred privacy of the happy 
meeting between the betrothed pair we will 
not intrude. As Mr. Dunham was brought 
into the sick man’s room, the colonel began 
his apology: 

“ Forgive me, my dear sir, my unpardonable 
rudeness the last time we met.” 

“Not a word of apology, tny good friend,” 
said Mr. Dunham, deprecatingly. “We both, 
I trust, understand each other better than we 
did; and this fair peacemaker,” he said, look- 
ing expressively at Blanche, “has removed, I 
trust, the last vestige of misunderstanding be- 
tween us.” 

“Yes,” said Blanche, taking her father’s 


A HOPE FULFILLED. 


203 


and Mr. Dunham’s hands in hers, “we are all 
good friends now and forever.” 

Elder Dunham could only spare a day or 
two — even on so joyous an occasion as this — 
from his manifold and widespread circuit en- 
gagements; but he did not leave without ob- 
taining Blanche’s consent that the Christmas 
festivities should celebrate also their wed- 
ding-day. 

This pleasant news Mr. Dunham communi- 
cated to his good friend Dame Barbara, greatly 
to her delight and surprise. 

“I suspicioned something was going to 
happen,” was her very safe remark, “when 
you came here post-haste, and would stay for 
neither bit nor sup; but it ’s up and away to 
the mansion you must go. But I don’t blame 
you now, though I confess I did a little then. 
Well, sir,” she went on, “you ’re the only man 
I know good enough for Miss Blanche. God’s 
blessing on you both !” 

The approaching event created an im- 
mense sensation in the Settlement. It was 
the first marriage to take place within the 
bounds of Upper Canada, and the little com- 

14 


204 


BARBARA HECK. 


munity felt almost the interest of a single 
family in the auspicious occasion. It would 
be thought nowadays scant time to prepare 
the bridal trousseau , but fashions were simpler 
in those primitive days. 

Mrs. Pemberton’s satin wedding-gown, 
which had lain undisturbed in its fragrant 
cedar-chest for years, was brought out, and 
when trimmed by the deft hands of Blanche 
with some rare old lace, made a dress of 
which even a modern belle might be proud. 

Mammy Dinah and Aunt Chloe exhausted 
their culinary skill in preparing a banquet 
worthy of the occasion. The larder was 
crowded with partridge and turkey, with ven- 
ison from the woods and noble salmon and 
whitefish from the river, and with all manner 
of confections and sweet cakes, that quite re- 
vived their recollections of the ample hospi- 
tality of their old Virginia home. 


It snowed within the house of meat and drink/ 


Chapter XIX. 

A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A SAD ONE. 
HERE was only one clergyman in Upper 



* Canada who could legally perforin the 
marriage — the Rev. Dr. Stuart, of the village 
of Frontenac, or Kingston, as it had now be- 
gun to be called. Of course, the colonel, as 
a magistrate, bearing His Majesty’s commis- 
sion, was empowered to celebrate marriages ; 
but being a staunch Churchman, he would 
not think of his daughter being married ex- 
cept with the fine old service with which he 
had wedded her mother a quarter of a century 
before. The clergyman arrived the day be- 
fore Christmas, with his lawn surplice and 
bands and Prayer-book in the portmanteau 
strapped on behind his saddle. That night 
was devoted by the young folks of the neigh- 
borhood to old-fashioned games and merry- 
making in the great kitchen — snap-dragon 
and corn-popping, and divining with apple 


205 


206 


BARBARA HECK . 


seeds and peelings, and the like rustic amuse- 
ments. In default of the English holly and 
Virginia laurel, the house was decorated by 
the deft fingers and fine taste of Blanche with 
the brilliant leaves and crimson berries of the 
rowan, or mountain-ash, that grew on a neigh- 
boring rocky ridge. Some fine old English 
carols were sung to the accompaniment of the 
colonel’s violin, on which he was an accom- 
plished performer — “Good King Wenceslas,” 
“God rest you, Merry Gentlemen,” “As Jo- 
seph was a-walking,” “ I saw three ships come 
sailing in,” and others, that had come down 
from time immemorial, and, translated to the 
Virginia plantations, had been sung by the 
loyal hearts of the planters as a sort of patri- 
otic as well as religious duty. 

Blanche’s Christmas presents had a double 
significance as being also wedding gifts. 
From her father she received a splendid neck- 
lace of pearls that had been fastened by good 
Queen Anne on his own mother’s neck. 

“Her Majesty never thought,” he said, 
“that they would form part of the wedding- 
gear of a Methodist preacher's wife in the 


A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A SAD ONE. 20/ 

backwoods of Canada. But I ’ll warrant, 
Blanche, that none of the court dames of St. 
James’s Palace were worthier to wear them 
than my own bonnie lass,” and proudly and 
fondly he kissed her fair cheek. 

From her mother she received a quantity 
of old-fashioned silver-ware, bearing the fam- 
ily crest — a hart at gaze on a field sown with 
lilies, with the pious legend, Quemadmodum 
desiderat cervus ad fontes aquarian (“As the 
hart panteth after the water brooks”). 

“Make it your life-motto, my child,” said 
that noble mother, whose own life exemplified 
the duty she enjoined. “So let your soul pant 
after the living God!” 

But more Blanche prized the gift of her 
mother’s ivory-bound Prayer-book, which she 
gave her with the words: 

“Take it, my child. It has been a solace 
to me in many a trying hour; so may it be 
to yon!” 

Mr. Dunham’s gift was simple, but to her 
worth all the rest — a plain gold wedding-ring. 

“It was my mother’s,” he said; “her last 
gift to me before she passed away from time. 


208 


BARBARA HECK. 


I can make no more sacred use of it than to 
symbolize my love for thee — endless as 
eternity.” 

Reginald gave her a handsomely-bound 
copy of Wesley’s Hymns. 

“It’s my liturgy and prayer-book, both 
together,” he said. “I never cared a straw 
for poetry till I read these. They are the 
genuine thing.” 

Dr. Stuart presented, with much effusion, 
an exceedingly solid-looking calf-bound book 
of something that seemed neither prose nor 
poetry. 

“Allow me, my dear young lady,” he said, 
in quite an oratorical manner, “to present you 
with a copy of the Songs of the immortal 
Ossian, the greatest poet the world has ever 
seen. I confess, to me Homer and Virgil, 
Shakespeare and Milton, seem tame compared 
with the spirit-stirring strains of the bard of 
Balclutha. O, fairer than Malvina, be thy 
hero brave as Fingal, and more fortunate ! 
You have, young lady, the only copy of this 
grand poem in Upper Canada, or perhaps on 
the continent of America; for it was given me 


A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A SAD ONE. 209 

by my friend, the translator, an auld comrade 
at Marischal College, Aberdeen.” 

Dame Barbara Heck sent some snowy linen 
napery, which she had hackled, spun, woven, 
and bleached herself after the good old Irish 
method, which was in America almost an un- 
known art. 

Good Hannah Whiteside had come over 
the previous evening with an ancient vellum- 
bound copy of George Fox’s “Treatise on the 
Inner Light.” 

“Father does not hold with fasts and feasts 
and festivals,” she said, “nor with the worldly 
fashion of making and receiving of marriage- 
gifts; but we love thee, and wish thee as well 
as those that do. It was borne in upon me 
that I should give thee a book that hath been 
a great comfort to mine own heart ; may it be 
so to thine ! Thee knows the Inner Light 
thyself ; may it shine more and more in thy 
soul unto the perfect day!” and she softly 
kissed the fair, smooth brow of the girl, who 
in turn pressed the silver-haired matron to 
her heart. 

On Christmas-day, Dr. Stuart, dressed in 


210 


BARBARA HECK. 


gown, bands, and surplice, held a Christmas 
service in the great parlor. The colonel, who 
was able to walk in on crutches, repeated the 
responses very firmly, and the sweet voice of 
Blanche sang, as if with unwonted signifi- 
cance, “My soul doth magnify the Lord,” and 
“Glory to God in the highest.” 

After the service the marriage took place, 
according to the seemly and becoming ritual 
of the Book of Common Prayer. Then came 
a generous banquet, to which, as also to the 
service, a goodly number of the neighbors had 
been invited. After ample justice had been 
done to the savory viands prepared by the 
housewifely skill of Mrs. Pemberton and her 
sable satellites, worthy Dr. Stuart, with quite 
a little oration l drank the bride’s health in 
some of the colonel’s old Madeira, which was 
gallantly responded to by Mr. Dunham ; for at 
that time the temperance reform had not yet 
begun in Canada. 

The old colonel was jubilant, Mrs. Pember- 
ton by turns tearful and radiant, Mr. Dunham 
manly and dignified. Barbara Heck warmly 


A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A SAD ONE. 21 1 


embraced the bride, with a hearty “God bless 
you, my bairn !” Reginald whispered in the 
ear of Katharine Heck, “Ours must be the 
next for he had found his tongue since the 
far-off summer days — how far off they 
seemed! — when he used to bring his offerings 
of flowers and fruits and spotted trout, and 
gaze unutterable things, though never a word 
he said. He had urged his suit so eloquently 
with the fair Katharine that he had won the 
confidence of her virgin heart; and her mother 
had consented that sometime in the future — 
when the uncertain and wandering nature of 
his itinerant life would permit — she would 
intrust her daughter’s happiness to the keep- 
ing of the manly youth, who, even though 
disinherited, she would have preferred as a 
Methodist preacher to the heir of all the Pem- 
berton estate without that richest grace of 
manhood, a converted heart. 

One invited guest, indeed, was absent from 
the festive gathering at the Pemberton place. 
Elder William Losee, when first invited to 
spend his Christmas at the mansion, had cor- 


212 


BARBARA HECK. 


dially assented. Shortly after he received 
from his fellow-missionary a note, from which 
the following is an extract: 

“Congratulate me, my dear brother, on my 
good fortune. At last Squire Pemberton has 
withdrawn his objections to my suit for his 
daughter’s hand, and Christmas is to be the 
happy day of its consummation. You know 
the lady well, and know her many virtues, her 
graces, and her piety. You will therefore be 
able to rejoice with me in the treasure I have 
won. I want you to be my best man at the 
wedding — a friendly duty which I know you 
will discharge with pleasure. And now, as 
they say in class-meeting, ‘when it goes 
well with thee, remember me,’ till we meet 
again.” 

When Losee received this letter it smote 
him like a dagger through the heart. Every 
word was like the wrenching of the weapon 
in the wound. He had himself been deeply 
fascinated with the moral and intellectual and 
personal attractions of the fair Blanche Pem- 
berton ; but a morbid sensitiveness on account 
of his personal infirmity — a shriveled arm — 


A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A SAD ONE. 2 1 3 

and his knowledge of the intense antipathy 
of the colonel to all Methodists, and especially 
Methodist preachers, together with his native 
modesty, or rather extreme bashfulness, had 
prevented him from ever betraying his feel- 
ings either to their prime object or to any 
other human being. “He never told his love, 
but let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud, 
feed on his cheek, and pined in thought.” 
Unconsciously, therefore, his friend and fel- 
low-laborer had probed his wounded spirit to 
the quick, and inflicted unutterable pain. 

“If it had been mine enemy that had done 
this,” exclaimed the stricken man, with a 
pang of jealousy, “I could have borne it; but 
mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, 
hath betrayed me. O, wicked and deceitful 
world, I will never trust man or woman 
more!” And he crushed the letter in his 
hand, as if he fain would crush its writer too. 
Then, in a moment, his better self, his quick- 
ened conscience, came to his rescue, and he 
groaned, in the anguish of his spirit: “God 
forgive me! This is the spirit of Cain, who 
slew his brother.” 


214 


BARBARA HECK. 


And going out into the lonely forest, 
through whose branches moaned the melan- 
choly wind as if in harmony with his own 
stormy soul, he threw himself on the ground 
and wrestled with his great life-sorrow, and 
besought grace to bear like a Christian man 
the wreck and ruin of his dearest hopes of 
earthly happiness. At length a peaceful calm 
stole over his spirit. He rose from his knees 
to retrace his steps to the settler’s cabin. As 
he bared his head, the cool wind of midnight 
seemed like a soft hand laid in benediction 
on his fevered brow. Retiring to his little 
chamber, he summoned courage to answer 
Dunham’s letter — one of the hardest tasks of 
his life. 

“My dear brother,” it began, “I wish you 
every happiness, and pray God’s blessing to 
rest on you and yours. I know well the sur- 
passing merits of the lady who is to share 
with you the joys and sorrows of life. May 
the former be many, the latter be few ! Many 
thanks for your kind request. Pray allow me 
to decline. I do not feel able for it — for rea- 
sons known only to God and my own heart 


A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A SAD ONE. 215 

And now, in the words of our great poet, let 
me say: 

‘Commend me to your honorable wife; 

Say how I loved you ; speak me fair in death.’ 

And should we meet no more on earth, let us 
meet where they neither marry nor are given 
in marriage, but are as the angels of God in 
heaven.” 

The letter was signed “Your sincere friend 
and well-wisher,” and a postscript, added in an 
agitated hand, intimated that the writer would 
have occasion to go East, and might never re- 
turn to his present field of labor. 

This letter reached Elder Dunham only 
the day before Christmas. He was much 
shocked and distressed at the evidence of 
mental agitation, if not aberration, that it 
contained. He showed it to Blanche, saying: 

“He evidently loved you, dear heart.” 

She read it thoughtfully, and then said, as 
she wiped away a tear: 

“Who would have dreamed it! He never 
spoke a word of thi-s.” 

They both, of course, felt very sorry for the 
unhappy man; but this was one of the cases 


2 l6 


BARBARA HECK. 


in which absolutely nothing can be done. 
They both anticipated a painful situation 
when they should meet him; but this ordeal 
they were spared. They never saw him again. 
His mental aberration became so apparent 
that he was withdrawn, kindly and quietly, by 
Bishop Asbury from the itinerant work. 

“It reflects no shame on the man,” says 
Playter, in his “ History of Canadian Method- 
ism;” “but thereby he was unable to perform 
the duties of his station. Disappointment, 
like a thunderbolt, overset the mental bal- 
ance of the first itinerant missionary of Can- 
ada. He became entirely unfitted for the 
constant and laborious duties of his ministry.” 

After the balance of his mind was restored, 
he left the Province, returned to the United 
States, and after a time he engaged in trade 
in a small way in New York — “an inglorious 
termination,” adds Dr. Carroll, in quoting this 
passage, “of a heroic career. He does not 
wonder,” he continues, “ that these ardent 
and not too much experienced young men 
were so smitten with one in youth, who, when 
the writer saw her, at the age of sixty, was 


A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A SAD ONE. 217 

still fascinating.”* Nevertheless, to both 
Elder Dunham and his wife the memory was 
always a painful one, the fair Blanche espe- 
cially accusing herself of having been the 
innocent and unconscious cause of so much 
suffering to one for whom she had cherished a 
profound respect, though never any more ten- 
der feeling. 

* Carroll’s “Case, and liis Contemporaries,” Vol. I, 
page 13. 


Chapter XX. 

CLOSING SCENES. 

F EW words more are needed to complete 
the story of our humble heroine. After 
the unusual excitement caused by the 
first marriage celebrated in Upper Canada, 
life at the Heck Settlement subsided into 
its usual quiet. The fair Blanche Dunham 
remained for two years at her old home, 
to gladden with her filial attentions her 
beloved father, who was now a chronic 
invalid. Elder Dunham continued to range 
throughout his vast circuit as energetically 
as before his marriage. Two years later he 
was appointed presiding elder of the “Can- 
ada District.” But, with the exception of a 
short residence in the western part of the 
province, his growing household found a 
home at the old Pemberton place. 

Reginald Pemberton was soon after ap- 
pointed to the Bay of Quintd Circuit. The 

consent of Barbara Heck was won by his elo- 
218 


CLOSING SCENES. 


219 


quence to parting with her daughter, the fair 
Katharine. 

“Go, my child,” she said; “you - will still 
be among your kinsfolk; and what is far bet- 
ter you will find there spiritual kin. You go 
not forth, like your father and mother, to 
a strange people and a strange land. But 
the Lord has been good, and has showed us 
his mercy in the Old World and the New.” 

Upon the fertile shores of the beautiful 
Bay of Quinte, a little company of Palatines, 
an offshoot from that of the Heck community, 
had settled. Here at Hay Bay, Adolphus- 
town, a deep inlet from the larger bay, Reg- 
inald Pemberton had the distinguished honor 
of causing the erection of the first Methodist 
meeting-house in Upper Canada. (At the 
Heck Settlement, the great parlor of the 
Heck house — specially constructed for the 
purpose — had been used for worship.) The 
new chapel was a barn-like wooden structure, 
thirty-six feet by thirty, two stories high, with 
galleries, which still exists in a tolerable state 
of preservation. Upon this Reginald wrought 
with his own hands. On the subscription 


220 


BARBARA HECK . 


list, which is still extant, may be deciphered 
the blurred and fading signatures of a 
younger generation of Emburys, Ruckles, 
and other godly Palatines, whose memory is 
forever associated with the introduction of 
Methodism to this continent and to this Do- 
minion. A worthy Methodist missionary, now 
in a distant field of the Great Lone Land, 
cherishes, as a precious relic of that first 
Methodist church in Canada, a staff made 
from one of its timbers. 

The little communities scattered through 
the far-spreading wilderness were cheered by 
the visits of that heroic band of missionaries 
who traversed the forests, and forded the 
streams, and slept oftentimes beneath the 
broad canopy of heaven. Here came the 
since famous Nathan Bangs, who records 
that, when he reached the Niagara River to 
enter Canada, there were but two log houses 
where the great city of Buffalo now stands. 
His written life recounts his strange adven- 
tures with enraged and drunken Indians and 
still more desperate white traders, with back- 
slidden Christians in whom he often reawoke 


CLOSING SCENES. 


221 


conviction for sin, and with earnest souls to 
whom he broke with gladness the bread of 
life. It was a day of unconventional freedom 
of manners. If the preacher could obtain no 
lodging-place but the village tavern, he would 
warn the revelers whom he found there to 
repent and flee from the wrath to come. 
When in a settler’s shanty he preached the 
Word of Life, he was subject to the frequent 
interruption of some lounger at the door or 
window, “How know you that?” or the re- 
monstrance from some conscience-stung soul, 
“What are you driving at me for?” 

Here, too, came the venerable Bishop 
Asbury, then in age and feebleness extreme, 
but untiring in his zeal for the cause of God. 
“We crossed the St. Lawrence,” writes his 
companion in travel, “in romantic style. We 
hired four Indians to paddle us over. They 
lashed three canoes together [they must have 
been wooden dugouts], and put our horses in 
them — their fore feet in one, their hind feet 
in another. We were a long time in crossing; 
it was nearly three miles, and part of the way i 
was rough, especially the rapids.” As Mr. 


222 


BARBARA HECK. 


Asbury was leading his horse over a bridge 
of poles, its legs slipped between them, and 
sank into mud and water. “Away went the 
saddle-bags; the books and clothes were wet, 
and the horse was fast. We got a pole under 
him to pry him out. The roads through the 
woods, over rocks, down gullies, over stumps, 
and through the mud, were indescribable. 
They were enough to jolt a hale bishop to 
death, let alone a poor infirm old man near 
the grave. He was very lame from inflam- 
matory rheumatism, but suffered like a 
martyr. The heat, too, was intolerable.” 

Yet the venerable bishop made light of his 
afflictions. “I was weak in body,” he wrote, 
after preaching at the Heck Settlement, “but 
was greatly helped in speaking. Here is a 
decent, loving people ; my soul is much united 
to them.” After a twelve miles’ ride before 
breakfast, he wrote: “This is one of the finest 
countries I have ever seen. The timber is of 
noble size; the crops abundant, on a most 
fruitful soil. Surely this is a land that God 
the L,ord hath blessed.” 

Crossing from Kingston to Sackett’s Har- 


CLOSING SCENES. 


223 


bor in an open boat, they were nearly wrecked. 
‘‘The wind was howling,” writes his compan- 
ion, “and the storm beating upon us. I fixed 
the canvas over the bishop like a tent, to keep 
off* the wind and rain. Then I lay down on 
the bottom of the boat, on some stones placed 
there for ballast, which I covered with some 
hay I procured in Kingston for our horses.” 
They reached land “sick, sore, lame and 
weary, and hungry.” Yet the old bishop set 
out in a thunder-storm to reach his appoint- 
ment. Such was the heroic stuff of which the 
pioneer missionaries of Canada were made. 

But we must return to the fortunes of the 
Heck family, from which we have digressed. 
Long before Asbury’s visit to Canada, the 
pioneer Methodist, Paul Heck, died at his 
home at Augusta, in the faith of the gospel, 
in his sixty-second year. His more retiring 
character shines with a milder radiance be- 
side the more fervid zeal of his heroic wife. 
But his traditionary virtues were perpetuated 
in the pious lives of his children and his 
children’s children after him. 

For twelve years longer his true and noble 


224 


BARBARA HECK. 


wife waited for the summons to join him in 
the skies — a ‘‘widow indeed,” full of faith 
and good works. In the old homestead, and 
enjoying the filial love and care of her son, 
Samuel Heck, she passed the time of her 
sojourning in calmness and contentment of 
soul. To her children’s children at her 
knee — a younger Katharine and Reginald 
Pemberton, a younger Paul and 'Barbara 
Heck, and to a younger Blanche and Darius 
Dunham — she read from her great German 
Bible the promises that had sustained her 
life, and never wearied of telling them the 
wondrous story of God’s providence to her 
and her kinsfolk who had passed on before — 
how he had brought them across the sea^ 
and kept them amid the perils of the city 
and the wilderness, and given them a goodly 
heritage in this fair and fertile land. But 
chiefly she loved, as she sat in her high-backed 
arm-chair in the cheerful ingle-nook of the 
broad fireplace, to converse on the deep 
things of God with the itinerant Methodist 
missionaries who found beneath the hospi- 
table roof a home in their wanderings, and to 


CLOSING SCENES. 


225 


learn of the wondrous growth throughout all 
the frontier settlements of that system of 
Methodism of which she had providentially 
been the foundress in the two great countries 
which divide between them this North Amer- 
ican Continent. 

At length, like the sun calmly sinking 
amid glories which seem like those of para- 
dise, to his rest, so passed away this saint of 
God and true mother in Israel. She died at 
the residence of her son, Samuel Heck, in 
the year 1804, having completed the full tale 
of , threescore years and ten. “Her death,” 
writes Dr. Abel Stevens, in his noble eulogy 
upon her character, “was befitting her life. 
Her old German Bible, the guide of her youth 
in Ireland, her resource during the falling 
away of her people in New York, her insep- 
arable companion in all her wanderings in the 
wildernesses of Northern New York and Can- 
ada, was her oracle and comfort to the last. 
She was fotfnd sitting in her chair dead, with 
the well-used and endeared volume open on 
her lap. And thus passed away this devoted, 
obscure, and unpretentious woman, who so 


226 


BARBARA HECK. 


faithfully, yet unconsciously, laid the founda- 
tions of one of the grandest ecclesiastical 
structures of modern ages, and whose name 
shall shine with ever-increasing brightness 
as long as the sun and moon endure.”* 

Many of the descendants of the Embury 
and Heck families occupy prominent posi- 
tions in our Church in Canada and the United 
States and many more died happy in the 
Lord. Philip Embury’s great-great-grandson, 
John Torrance, Jr., Esq., has long filled the 
honorable position of treasurer and trustee 
steward of three of the large Methodist 
churches of Montreal. 

The Rev. Dr. Carroll writes of a grandson 
of Paul and Barbara Heck: “He was a proba- 
tioner in the Wesleyan ministry when he was 
called to his reward. He was eminently 
pious, a clear-headed theologian, and a 
preacher of promise. His father, Samuel 
Heck, was an eminent local preacher for more 
than forty years, and by his consistency 
earned the meed of universal respect, and 

* Barbara Heck’s Bible is now in tfie library of Vic- 
toria University, Toronto. 


CLOSING SCENES. 


227 


from none more than from his immediate 
neighbors, to whom he preached nearly every 
second Sabbath during that whole period. 
“Jacob Heck, his brother,” continues the 
writer, “was one of the best read men we 
ever had the happiness to converse with, and 
one whose conversation was as lively and 
playful as it was instructive. We never saw 
a finer old man. We can imagine we can 
now see his venerable white head, stooping 
form, and sparkling dark eyes, and also hear 
his ringing, hearty laugh. He showed his 
amiability by his fondness for little children, 
who were equally fond of him. The ten 
surviving grandchildren of Paul and Barbara 
Heck are pious, and many of their great- 
grandchildren also.” 

On the banks of the majestic St. Lawrence, 
about midway between the thriving town of 
Prescott and the picturesque village of Mait- 
land, lies a lonely graveyard, which is one of 
the most hallowed spots in the broad area of 
our country. Here, on gently rising ground 
overlooking the rushing river, is the quiet 
“God’s acre” in which slumbers the dust of 


228 


BARBARA HECK. 


that saintly woman who is honored in two 
hemispheres as the mother of Methodism on 
this continent. This spot, known as the 
“Old Blue Churchyard,” takes its name 
from an ancient church which once wore a 
coat of blue paint. The forest-trees which 
covered this now sacred scene were cleared 
away by the hands which have long since 
ceased from their labor and been laid to 
rest in the quiet of these peaceful graves. 
Thither devout men, amid the tears of weep- 
ing neighbors and friends, bore the remains 
of Paul Heck and of Barbara his wife. Here, 
too, slumbers the dust of the once beautiful 
Catharine Switzer, who, in her early youth, 
gave her heart to God and her hand to Philip 
Embury, and for love’s sweet sake braved 
the perils of the stormy deep and the priva- 
tions of pioneer life in the New World. Here 
sleep also, till the resurrection trump awake 
them, the bodies of several of the early Pala- 
tine Methodists and of many of their descend- 
ants, who, by their patient toil, their earnest 
faith, their fervent zeal, have helped to make 
our country what it is to-day. 


BURIAL-PLACE OF PAUL AND BARBARA HFCK. 















V - 




















































' 








CLOSING SCENES. 


229 


On a bright day in October I made a 
pilgrimage to this place, which is invested 
with so many tender memories. The old 
wooden church, very small and very quaint, 
fronts the passing highway. It has seats but 
for forty-eight persons, and is still used on 
funeral occasions. Its tiny tinned spire gleams 
brightly in the sunlight, and its walls have 
been weathered by many a winter storm to a 
dusky gray. Around it, on every side, “heaves 
the turf in many a moldering heap;” for 
during well-nigh one hundred years it has 
been the burying-place of the surrounding 
community. A group of venerable pines keep 
guard over the silent sleepers in their narrow 
beds. But one grave beyond all others ar- 
rests our attention. At its head is a plain 
white-marble slab on a gray-stone base. On 
a shield-shaped panel is the following in- 
scription : 

IN MEMORY OR 

PAUL HECK, 

BORN I73O. DIED 1792. 

BARBARA, 

WIFE OF PAUE HECK, 

BORN I734. DIED AUG. 1 7, 1804. 


230 


BARBARA HECK . 


And this is all. Sublime in its simplicity; 
no labored epitaph; no fulsome eulogy, — her 
real monument is the Methodism of the New 
World. 

Near by are the graves of seventeen other 
members of the Heck family. Among them 
is that of a son of Paul and Barbara Heck, 
an ordained local preacher, whose tombstone 
bears the following inscription: “Rev. Samuel 
Heck, who laboured in his Master’s vineyard 
for upwards of thirty-eight years. Departed 
this life in the triumphs of faith on the 18th 
of August, 1844, aged seventy-one years and 
twenty-one days.” Another Samuel Heck, 
son of the above-named, a Wesleyan minister, 
died in 1846, aged, as is recorded with loving 
minuteness, “thirty years, seven months, fif- 
teen days.” To the members of this godly 
family the promised blessing of the righteous, 
even length of days, was strikingly vouch- 
safed. On six graves, lying side by side, I 
noted the following ages: 73, 78, 78, 53, 75, 
59. On others I noted the following ages: 
63, 62, 70, 70. I observed, also, the grave of 
a little Barbara Heck, aged three years and 


CLOSING SCENES . 


231 


six months. The latest dated grave is that 
of Catharine Heck, a granddaughter of Paul 
and Barbara Heck, who died 1880, aged sev- 
enty-eight years. She was described as a 
saintly soul, handsome in person, lovely in 
character, well educated, and refined. She 
bequeathed at her death a generous legacy to 
the Missionary Society of the Methodist 
Church of Canada. Near the grave of Bar- 
bara Heck is that of her life-long companion 
and friend, the beautiful Catharine Switzer, 
who married, at the age of sixteen, Philip 
Embury. Here also is the grave of John 
Eawrence, a pious Methodist, who left Ireland 
with Embury, and afterwards married his 
widow. 

After visiting these honored graves, I had 
the pleasure of dining with three grandchil- 
dren of Paul and Barbara Heck. The eldest 
of these, Jacob Heck, a vigorous old man of 
over eighty, was baptized by Eosee, the first 
Methodist missionary in Canada. A kind- 
souled and intelligent granddaughter of Bar- 
bara Heck evidently appreciated the honors 
paid her sainted ancestry. She brought out 


232 


BARBARA HECK. 


a large tin box, containing many interesting 
souvenirs of her grandparents. Among these 
were a silver spoon, with the monogram 

p. B. 

H.; 

stout leather-bound volumes of Wesley’s Ser- 
mons, dated 1770; Wesley’s Journal, dated 
1743; General Haldimand’s “discharge” of 
Paul Heck from the volunteer troops, etc. 
But of special interest was the old German 
black-letter Bible, bearing the following clear- 
written inscription : “ Paul Heck, sein buch, 
ihm gegeben darin zu lernen die Neiderreiche 
sprache. Amen.” The printed music of the 
psalter at the end of the book was like that 
described by Longfellow in Priscilla’s psalm- 
book: 

“ Rough-hewn angular notes, like stones in the wall of a 
churchyard, 

Darkened and overhung by the running vine of the 
verses.” 

This, it is almost certain, is the very Bible 
which Barbara Heck held in her hands when 
she died. 

Just opposite the elegant home of Mr. 


CLOSING SCENES. 


2 33 


George Heck, whose hospitalities I enjoyed, 
is the old Heck house, a large old-fashioned 
structure dating from near the beginning of 
the century. It is built in the quaint Nor- 
man style common in French Canada, and is 
flanked by a stately avenue of venerable Lom- 
bardy poplars. Its massive walls, three feet 
thick, are like those of a fortress, and the 
deep casements of the window are like its 
embrasures. The huge stone-flagged kitchen 
fireplace is as large as half a dozen in these 
degenerate days, and at one side is an open- 
ing into an oven of generous dimensions, 
which makes a swelling apse on the outside 
of the wall. In the grand old parlor the 
paneling of the huge and stately mantelpiece 
is in the elaborate style of the last century. 
From the windows a magnificent view of the 
noble St. Lawrence and of the American shore 
meets the sight, as it must, with little change, 
have met that of Barbara Heck one hundred 
years ago. 

Is not the memory of this sainted woman 

a hallowed link between the kindred Method- 

isms of the United States and Canada, of 
16 


234 


BARBARA HECK, 


both of which she was, under the blessing 
of God, the foundress? Her sepulcher is with 
us to this day, but almost on the border line, 
as if, in death as in life, she belonged to each 
country. 

As I knelt in family prayer with the de- 
scendants of this godly woman, with the old 
German Bible which had nourished her ear- 
nest piety in my hands, I felt myself brought 
nearer the springs of Methodism on the con- 
tinent; and as I made a night railway journey 
to my distant home, the following reflections 
shaped themselves into verse: 

Q 

AT BARBARA HECK’S GRAVE. 

I stood beside the lowly grave where sleep 
The ashes of Dame Barbara Heck, whose hand 
Planted the vital seed wherefrom this land 
Hath ripened far and wide, from steep to deep, 

The golden harvest which the angels reap, 

And garner home the sheaves to heaven’s strand. 
From out this lowly grave there doth expand 
A sacred vision, and we dare not weep. 

Millions of hearts throughout the continent 
Arise and call thee blessed of the Lord — 

His handmaiden on holiest mission sent, 

To teach, with holy life, his Holy Word. 

O rain of God, descend in showers of grace — 

Refresh, with dews divine, each thirsty place! 


CLOSING SCENES. 


235 


BARBARA HECK’S GERMAN BIBEE. 

I held within my hand the time-worn Book 
Wherein the brave-souled woman oft had read 
The oracles divine, and inly fed 
Her soul with thoughts of God, and took 
Deep draughts of heavenly wisdom, and forsook 
All lesser learning for what God had said; 

And by his guiding hand was gently led 
Into the land of rest for which we look. 

Within her hand she held this Book when came 
The sudden call to join the white-rpbed throng. 
Her name shall live on earth in endless fame, 

Her liigh-souled faith be theme of endless song. 
O Book divine, that fed that lofty faith, 

Eubrave, like hers, our souls in hour of death ! 


The Methodists of the United States wor- 
thily honored the memory of Barbara Heck, 
on the occasion of the centennial anniversary 
of the planting of Methodism in that land, 
by the erection of a memorial building in 
connection with the Garrett Biblical Institute 
at Evanston, Illinois — founded through the 
munificence of a Methodist lady — to be known 
for ever as Heck Hale. Thus do two de- 
vout women — one the heir of lowly toil, the 
other the daughter of luxury and wealth — join 
hands across the century; and their names 
and virtues are commemorated, not by a costly 


236 BARBARA HECK . 

but useless pillared monument, but by a 
“home for the sons of the prophets, the 
Philip Emburys of the coming century, while 
pursuing their sacred studies.” 

“Barbara Heck,” writes Dr. (now Bishop) 
C. H. Fowler, in commemorating this event, 
“put her brave soul against the rugged pos- 
sibilities of the future, and throbbed into ex- 
istence American Methodism. The leaven of 
her grace has leavened a continent. The seed 
of her piety has grown into a tree so immense 
that a whole flock of commonwealths come 
and lodge in the branches thereof, and its 
mellow fruits drop into a million homes. To 
have planted American Methodism ; to have 
watered it with holy tears; to have watched 
and nourished it with the tender, sleepless 
love of a mother and the pious devotion of a 
saint; to have called out the first minister, 
convened the first congregation, met the first 
class, and planned the first Methodist church 
edifice, and to have secured its completion, — 
is to have merited a monument as enduring 
as American institutions, and, in the order of 
Providence, it has received a monument which 


CLOSING SCENES. 


237 


the years can not crumble, as enduring as the 
Church of God. The life-work of Barbara 
Heck finds its counterpart in the living ener- 
gies of the Church she founded.” 

As we contemplate the lowly life of this 
true mother in Israel, and the marvelous re- 
sults of which she was providentially the in- 
itiating cause, we can not help exclaiming, in 
devout wonder and thanksgiving, “What hath 
God wrought!” In the United States and 
Canada there is at this moment, as the out- 
growth of the seed sown in weakness over a 
century ago, a great Church organization, like 
a vast banyan-tree, overspreading the conti- 
nent, beneath whose broad canopy nearly 
twenty millions of souls, as members or ad- 
herents, or about one-fourth the entire popu- 
lation, enroll themselves by the name of 
Methodists. The solitary testimony of Philip 
Embury has been succeeded by that of a great 
army of fifteen thousand local preachers, and 
nearly as many ordained ministers. Over two 
hundred Methodist colleges and academies 
unite in hallowed wedlock the principles of 
sound learning and vital godliness. Nearly 


238 


BARBARA HECK. 


half a hundred newspapers, magazines, and 
other periodicals, together with a whole li- 
brary of books of Methodist authorship, scat- 
ter broadcast throughout the land the relig- 
ious teachings of which those lowly Palatines 
were the first representatives in the New 
World. 

In these marvelous achievements we -find 
ground, not for vaunting and vainglory, but 
for devout humility and thankfulness to God. 
To all who bear the name of Methodist come 
with peculiar appropriateness the words of 
Holy Writ: “Ye see your calling, brethren, 
how that not many wise men after the flesh, 
not many mighty, not many noble are called : 
but God hath chosen the foolish things of this 
world to confound the things which are 
mighty; and base things of the world, and 
things which are despised, hath God chosen, 
yea, and things which are not, to bring to 
naught things that are: that no flesh should 
glory in his presence. . . . He that glo- 

rieth, let him glory in the Lord.” 



X ^^^|^^|xyixx|xxi\y|xyixx'|xxjxyi>vxi'e y| *. yj\ y j\ x j>. xjx yjx*y 


THE STORY OF BOHEMIA. 

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CRANSTON & CURTS, Cincinnati, Chicago, St. Louis 






























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